


Nights in Winterhold

by Xyshurondor



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Altmer - Freeform, BDSM, Blow Jobs, College of Winterhold - Freeform, Consensual, Cuddling, Dunmer - Freeform, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Female Dominant, Femdom, Hand Jobs, Heterosexual, Interspecies, M/M, Mages, Orc, OrcxBreton, Original Characters - Freeform, Peril, Prostate Massage, Skyrim - Freeform, Slow Romance, Smut, Trapped in the Closet, Vaginal Fingering, Wizards, Woman on Top, breton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-03-21 02:29:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 49,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13731222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyshurondor/pseuds/Xyshurondor
Summary: An episodic collection of romantic and erotic stories about students at the College of Winterhold in Skyrim.  Each chapter after the Introduction is a new short story, which is why you will see multiple couple types.I now have an original novel on Amazon Kindle, but I've been informed the TOS does not allow me to link that here.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly – if you're looking for stories with more action, please have a look at *Masser New, Secundus Waning* or the stories on my shared account ManiacsOfTamriel (*Through Blood and Through Fire* is probably our best). You are warned up front, this story will be NSFW for sexual elements. 
> 
> As usual, I will make things up that canon leaves out or that I have been unable to answer with research. I will always invent rather than leave something vague. In particular I'll be mucking about with the College's layout adding things that people require for living but that aren't in the game (please see the map appended above the Introduction). I've kept the idea of spell failure on loss of concentration from Morrowind because I like that idea better than the Oblivion/Skyrim 100% spell chance thing.
> 
> I also have invented doors for the student rooms, because why in the world would they not have those? That's always confused me. Also, I'll probably use spells that are not just from TES V, where I can do that without dealing with how they've futzed about with what goes in what school compared to previous canon.
> 
> If you enjoy this story, please leave kudos. Remember, you can leave kudos anonymously, so there's no reason to be shy. Anonymous comments will also be allowed unless someone makes me regret that decision. So far this site doesn't seem to attract a lot of trolls, knock on wood.

 

 

It was an odd crop of students that year. Odd, and bigger than usual. Everyone knew that the Dragonborn Ivir Salvorsson was still the Arch-Mage In Absentia, and he was somewhat famous for his association not only with the thu'um, to which he was born, but with a degree of Destruction magery that he had attained through study at the College. Many eyes were drawn to the high spire across the narrow bridge in the year after the defeat of Alduin. Some of the families of Skyrim who had been resolved upon saving their resources to send their sons and daughters abroad to a Mages Guild sent them by wagon to Winterhold instead.

  


Some came from further afield. The house of Indoril were known for having no love for the Mages Guild even in these waning days when there were few of them left. They sent a young sprig all the long way from what was left of Morrowind, where his people clung stubbornly to a fortress that had outlasted the Red Year and the Argonian invasion. The young Dunmer arrived dressed in black, with his dark hair braided long behind him and a very small, very neat beard that, combined with an overall hollow-faced and dour look, made him look more than a little malevolent.

  


A younger son of one of the Fourth Orsinium's prominent houses was packed off as quickly as possible, before he could embarrass anyone more than he already had. They kept sending him on tests of proving that had rid them of many another embarrassing younger son. He kept coming back alive. At least the College of Winterhold should keep him busy for a while. That should make him happy, the book-hungry whelp. He trundled up to the narrow half-cracked bridge looking like a small mountain covered in furs and carrying a huge pack on his back. Faralda later said he was very polite. No, not just for an orc. Anyway, he passed the test easily enough.

  


The refined tradition of dueling rendered some parts of High Rock hazardous for a talented but timid practitioner of the arts. The House of Morin had been kings, once. That wasn't saying much. In High Rock nearly every House had furnished a king of something at some point. At the moment their fortunes were not as they had once been, and competition for the inheritance of the old Château Morin was fierce and constant. When she was twenty Inés was nearly killed by one of her cousins who had noticed she was gradually and quietly growing a noticeable aura of magicka. She healed herself as best she could, gathered up her small savings, and made for the nearest city with a boat that could take her to Skyrim. She arrived on the snowy shores of that mountainous continent a shaking wreck, huge-eyed and scrawny in hand-me-down robes of green velvet that were so old they hardly had a nap left except near the lapels.

  


There were others. Khajiit, Argonians, Nords, even a few scattered Bosmer and Imperials, though the Imperials were apt to consider the College as an entity suspiciously unreverent of the Empire's authority. There were not many Altmer in this day and age. Faralda might be a High Elf herself, but she was a member of the College first, more apt to scrutinize other Altmer very carefully after what Ancano had done. At least three were turned away on suspicion of being Thalmor spies. She probably let Menali in on account of how there was no way a Thalmor would have looked at or spoken to him, let alone employed him. He was dressed in rags, his body scarred with serpentine curlicues and spirals over most of his exposed back that had been laid in as neatly and delicately as embroidery. His feet were so badly frostbitten that he'd already lost a toe. He was raving with fever, and most of what he said on that first day didn't make any sense, in Cyrodilic or in Aldmeris or in a daedric tongue Faralda was startled to hear from such a young mer. But he obviously wanted in, and at Faralda's prompting he summoned a flame atronach extremely easily. In he went with all of the others.

  


It would prove to be an interesting first few months...

 


	2. Del and Inès: Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The protagonists of this chapter are a female Breton and a male Orc.

> Inés was overjoyed to have survived long enough to reach Winterhold, but it was just her luck that her room in the vast curving Hall of Attainment was directly next door to an Orc. When she was a little girl there had been a workman in the Chateau's gardens who had often been drunk, and when he was drunk often raved of the Third Orsinium and how it would not have fallen if the Empire hadn't been full of mealy-mouthed lying humans with their weird round-pupiled eyes just like all the other damned mer except for Orsimer. He seemed to take special enjoyment in chasing her down and shouting at her. He threatened to rend her limb from limb if she told anyone - “I'll get angry, and you don't want to see an Orc angry, stripling!” - and given that she was mostly ignored in favor of the three siblings older than herself, she didn't see much point. He terrorized her for years, getting uglier and smellier every year until finally he succeeded in drinking himself dead one cold winter. She was the one who found his body, teeth bared in a final snarl and stinking worse than ever. She washed four times a day until they made her stop because it was wasting soap.

 

And now there was this. On the one hand, her room was warmer and the bed was nicer than the large frigid drafty room full of untouchable antiques where she had spent most of her first twenty years. She had her own book shelf and food shelf and dresser and work table, more than she had ever dreamed. On the other hand, it seemed like every time she went out to lectures with kind old Tolfdir or the newer Wizards Pendre and J'zon, there was the Orc, towering in his own doorway as he blinked down at her through his octagonal spectacles. His eyes were very yellow and their pupils were vertical and narrow, like a Khajiit's, like ugly old Bord's had been.

 

“Are you going to Enchanting?” he asked, the first time he turned from shutting his door and found a little slip of a Breton staring goggle-eyed up at him. Her eyes were green and her hair was very dark brown, usually tied loosely back behind her head. Dal wore his hair cropped quite short and close to his head, somewhat unusually for an Orc. His ears looked enormous and ragged next to it, like a bat's wings. His voice was so deep that at first it just sounded like a distant growl to Inés, making her twitch, but eventually she did parse out the words in Cyrodilic.

 

“Yes,” she squeaked.

 

“I'm Dal gro-Galad. May I walk with you?” he asked.

 

“Meep!”

 

“Sorry, I'll just give it a minute, then,” he said politely, and watched Inés scoot rapidly away, old green robes flapping as she tightly clutched her satchel to keep it from flapping. Her clothes were so loose that she could've looked like anything at all under them. She'd never given her name.

 

Dal wore his student robes, practical brown homespuns lined with softer linen. They'd been made for a male Nord, originally, and he strained them a little in the shoulders, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. The clothes he was used to were mostly too warm, as hot as they kept it inside the College buildings. Fourth Orsinium was up in the high Wrothgarians. It was almost never warm there. He was not new to having about half the women he met that weren't Orcs treat him as if he might pounce and eat them, but it was always a bit puzzling. It came naturally to him, an alchemist even before he came to the College, to move carefully in case of breaking things; keeping his voice down so that it didn't sound like he was shouting at everyone was more of an effort.

 

Still – this was the most wonderful place he had ever seen. He had heard that students would sometimes fight practice duels out in the courtyard or in the Hall of Attainment's round tiled center, but there wasn't the constant tiresome brawling required to maintain any sort of cachet as a young Orc in a nobleman's household. The fact that he thought in phrases like “any sort of cachet” was probably his mother's fault, or at least so his father had always said. She had wanted all her sons to have a good grounding in reading Cyrodilic so that they could have access to the finer tacticians, and he'd gotten a little too good at it, a little too fast.

 

Enchanting was held on foldout tables they all had to help carry into the Hall of the Elements from a storage room off the Laundry that lurked like a sanitary Hell between the main levels and the Middens below. Here, ranged around the magicka well that glowed blue and cold in the center of the room, they listened to Pendre Aladirre give one of her droning lectures on the use of soul gems to imbue objects with useful enchantments. The Breton Wizard had an especially dull and monotonous alto voice. It was rumored that the Enchanting lectures were held without chairs so that no one would get too comfortable and fall asleep.

 

Inés went as far as she could to avoid the Orc when they were setting up, though he did not seem to be paying her any mind, and ended up at the same table as a cruelly handsome Dunmer with a little black beard. She thought she'd been told he was an Indoril, although that seemed far-fetched. He dwelt on his attempts to enchant a ring with frowning intensity and, beyond greeting her in a refined accent, said little at first. He had an aura that, up close, felt strangely hard to pin down, like stepping on a shadow, which meant he was probably more of an Illusionist than anything else.

 

He gave up before she did, turning the useless ring in his hands, and after a moment he turned to watch her as she tried to concentrate on forming the spell in her mind as she held a common soul gem in one hand and the ring in the other. Power twined between them in golden strands as she struggled to imbue the ring with the only healing spell she knew. At last it spiraled inward to the bit of copper jewelry and the metal took on a faint sheen that it had not possessed before. Inés grinned at it, though she was breathing as though she had been running.

 

“Oh, well done,” the Dunmer said, and she looked up guiltily, remembering she wasn't alone. He was watching her with an almost theatrical leer. He always wore black even though they'd been issued student robes. It seemed unlikely he was saving it because it was finer than his own clothes, as she was. The red-on-red eyes traveled up and down her body in a way that made her want to check if she had accidentally left her room naked.

 

“Thanks,” she said. That seemed safe enough.

 

“I'm afraid I'm no good at it at all. Is it possible I could persuade you to tutor me? Even just the once would be an awfully great help,” he said silkily, his eyes now fixed on hers. She looked back, feeling unable to move.

 

“I – suppose I could,” she said. “In here, tonight?”

 

“Oh, anywhere you like,” he said. “I am Galvyn Indoril.”

 

“I- Inés Morin,” she stammered. “If you can get another soul gem by then - ?”

 

“Certainly, Inés Morin.” He lingered on the syllables of her name as though they were something filthy.

 

That evening she met him alone by the power well. True to his word, he did have a soul gem in his hand, but she had barely opened her mouth to ask if he had the ring when he said,

 

“You know, I can think of a better use for this than enchanting.”

 

“What?” Color flooded into her face as Inés stared at him. He moved toward her and she skipped back a step almost without thinking.

 

“Come now, surely you know why you came here, little mouse,” he sneered. “All dressed in red like the little slut that you are.”

 

“I'm dressed in green!” she snapped, backpedaling further toward the doors. He paused, blinking, and for a moment the leer left his face and he just looked a bit confused. In that moment he looked like someone very different, and Inés paused, tilting her head. “You can't tell that it's green?”

 

“Don't try to change the subject, poppet,” he said, eyes returning to her as the mask of concupiscent evil slipped back over his features. “You know that I have ways of making you do just as I like.”

 

“If you touch me it will go very hard for you,” she said. He lunged forward and grabbed her arm.

 

“Oh, I assure you, it's already very HAARGH!”

 

He let go as Inés released several days' worth of pent-up magicka at once. The shield formed so hard and so fast in front of her that it blasted him back several feet. He was still lying there stunned, going “Ruh?” as she turned and sprinted for the door. There was a moment's panicked shuffling in the doorway as she tried to remember how to let _go_ of the shield, and then she ran back to her own room as fast as she could go, tears of fury and humiliation stinging her eyes.

 

_Poppet!? Little slut? What an awful, nasty mer. I ought to tell one of the Wizards._

 

_And get thrown out for slandering someone so rich and important? His family are one of the oldest Dunmer families that exists. The House of Morin have been nobody for more than two hundred years now._

 

In the Hall of the Elements, Galvyn Indoril lay staring at the dark and distant ceiling, waiting for the spots to clear from in front of his eyes.

 

“Well, that went rather well,” he said smoothly to no one. They weren't going to throw him out after the first and especially unsuccessful offense, not with the amount of gold he'd brought for the College on his arrival. He devoutly hoped once was enough. He wasn't sure he wanted to have to do the whole performance again. Shame about the robe. He'd had an even chance.

 

Dal heard Inés's running feet and heard her door slam. He wasn't sure where she'd been so late, but it was none of his busInéss. Anyway, he had a fairly delicate tincture in progress that absorbed all of his attention. If you didn't tip it out of the calcinator at just the right moment, you had to start over. He had begun gathering snowberries from the courtyard at night because they were more potent if you gathered them in darkness for reasons he was still studying. Since Lockout was at 10, this meant sometimes he spent the entire night outside. He had ways of dealing with this, but it was inconvenient enough that he hated to let reagents go to waste.

 

After that Inés tried to avoid both Galvyn and Dal. That was not to be the only pitfall of her first year at Winterhold, however. Among the other students there was a Nord called Brynja Aelfor. Brynja was blond and buxom and beautiful, was a distant relative of some Thane whose name she tended to mutter such that it was hard to understand it, and was a prodigy at Destruction. She introduced herself to Inés before their first lecture in Destruction and got a small, polite response, and thereafter a series of monosyllabic replies. Inés was doing her best, but the aura of fire/frost/lightning put her hairs up because it was awfully similar to her cousin Michel's. Brynja grew visibly more irritated, and just as Tolfdir called the class to order she looked down at Inés in exasperation and said,

 

“Haven't got much to say for yourself, have you?”

 

Thereafter she treated Inés as someone who thought she was too good to talk to lesser mortals. Because Brynja was pretty and generally tried to make friends, she usually got along well with other people; so when she took against someone, they tended to become unpopular. Eventually people would probably get to know her better and realize she also tended to make snap judgments based on her first encounter with a given person, but that would take time, and until then Inés found herself either ignored or treated with wary caution, as if she might suddenly snap off someone's nose for saying the wrong thing. She heard Brynja call her the Ice Princess once when she thought Inés was not within earshot.

Inés hid in her room studying all the rest of the day, eating a scrounged apple and not much else. She was jolly well here to learn magic, and she was going to learn magic, not sit around crying like a little baby. That evening there was a knock at her door. She opened it to find Brynja there with a couple of the others, an Imperial called Callia and a Dunmer called Lirane. All of them were pretty. All of them were Destructionists. Inés repressed a shudder as she said quietly,

“Yes?”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Brynja said. “Why don't you come berry-picking with us? We've packed some mead. We can have a little picnic, just us girls.”

“Will we be back before Lockout?” Inés asked in a very small voice. It was only an hour or so away, and she had no furs, only her student robes and the old ones she wore more often. Tonight she was dressed in an ancient gray woolen thing that smelled faintly of mothballs and hung on her as though she had been a scarecrow.

“Oh, yes, don't worry,” Brynja said. “Hurry, the moon will set even before that.”

It really wasn't bad, Inés thought for a while. She did her best to make small chat with the others about potions and alchemy as they bustled around picking berries. It was easy to lose track of time. Eventually she had about a half-cup of snowberries, red and bright in the moonlight, and Brynja waved her over to pass the mead around. Inés probably should have paid more attention to the fact that she was offered it first.

“Thanks,” she said, and took a drink. She'd never had mead before, so she assumed the slight peculiar tingle as it went down was normal. She handed it to Callia and was checking her little canvas sack again when she suddenly felt very, very heavy, limbs dragging. She slumped to the ground, too exhausted to move, and then they were on her, whispering to each other as they pulled her outer robe off. Inés's heart leaped into her throat and she whimpered, but they didn't do anything beyond that.

“And that's what you get for being an Ice Princess,” Brynja whispered to her. They left her in her white cotton shift and gathered up her other things and hurried away, leaving her lying in a patch of last night's hard-packed snow with her hair all disarranged and tears leaking from her eyes.

It seemed like forever until the stamina drain wore off. She was so tired, and it seemed colder by the minute. By the time she started being able to move her fingers, snow was starting to fall. She climbed wearily to her feet and ran for the Hall of Attainment, bare feet scuffing the stone walkway. A stone cut one of them, but she healed herself with her weak little spell before she did worse than leave a smear of blood on the paving.

 

The doors were locked.

 

Inés stared up at them in consternation. It must be after Lockout. They'd left her outside after Lockout. She knocked on the door, softly at first, then harder, but no one answered. No one came. The doors were so heavy and thick that they probably couldn't even hear her. She looked around frantically, arms tight around herself against the cold. The wind was blowing hard now. She could try the bridge, try and get Faralda's help, but she wasn't sure she would make it across without slipping and falling. There was at least one place where it was only about a foot across, part of it destroyed in the long-ago cataclysm that had killed most of Winterhold at the time. The wells of magicka were as cold as water. They gave light but no heat.

 

She tried the Hall of Countenance, where the more advanced students stayed, and then with little hope the Hall of the Elements. She even tried the kitchens and the curving low building that held the main bathhouse and privies, just in case someone had secretly left a door unlocked in hopes of a midnight snack or assignation, but she had no luck. It was so late that even the servants had finished cleaning up and set out the bread to rise overnight and gone to bed in their quarters down around the Laundries. Her voice was hoarse from shouting by that point, but the wind seemed to carry it all away.

 

Inés's feet hurt again, but she was too cold and tired to care. She slumped down against the door for the minimal warmth that it brought, watching the snow swirl across the courtyard. How long until she couldn't get up again? She already couldn't feel much in her toes. The cold hurt more than she could have imagined, needles stabbing into every inch of her flesh, making her nipples feel like little needles themselves. She tried to heal herself and watched the power fizzle out at her fingertips. She could not concentrate.

 

Gods, they'd find her frozen solid in the morning, and it would look like she'd just run out here in her undergarment into the snow. Someone might ask why she would do that, but with no clear evidence of foul play, and a student nobody really liked, what could they do? Inés slumped, utterly defeated. Well, she'd had a good run there for a little while. It was better than letting Cousin Michel electrocute her to death. That was very cold comfort as she started to feel more and more icy and numb.

 

Dal gro-Galad was out on one of his late collection expeditions, bag on his hip, bear furs sewn together to form a rough mantle over his back and shoulders, a heavy fleece-lined fur cloak with a hood under that. He had fleece-lined leather gloves and boots, and a little hip flask of one of his crude potions in case he started to feel cold, although that was honestly very unlikely. The stamina restorative was of more use. No reason to be sleepy and cranky when they opened the doors in the morning.

 

He parted a couple of branches to reach for a berry that was well behind the others and saw another gleam of red. He frowned, straightening away from the bush. It was a smear of something on the pavement. Dal went to crouch next to it, then lowered his face to sniff it. _Blood. Not Orcish, either._ The Orcish reputation for body odor was based on the bad hygiene of certain warriors in the field, but there was a certain distinct musk to Orcish blood all the same. So he hadn't cut himself by accident or something. It was fresh and not frozen. Someone else was out here. He walked in a small careful circle around it until he saw another smear further along. Dal frowned and turned to go and look. It became bloody footprints as he followed it around the arc of the courtyard. They were very small footprints. Whoever it was was tiny and barefoot and definitely should not be out here in the snow.

 

He found a small form still leaning against the door to the Hall of the Elements, curled up as tight as she could, arms around her knees. Her feet were blue and the bottoms of them were a bloody, dirty mess.

 

“Good Gods,” Dal said, and hurried to kneel beside her, doffing his outer mantle. He extended a hand to cast his weak healing spell, the one they all knew. “What are you doing out here?”

 

She twitched, then tried to press herself against the door, panicked but not completely conscious. The small white face with the vivid green eyes had to belong to Inés, though disfigured by terror she was hard to recognize.

 

“Easy,” Dal said softly, holding out the mantle. “It's Dal. I'm not going to hurt you.”

 

She was panting, shoulders heaving, and her eyes were not completely focused. He watched as she blinked in confusion at the mantle. Then she slumped forward, eyes rolling upward. Dal caught her so that she wouldn't hit her head.

 

_Well, at least I know what to do. It's not any colder here than it is back home._

 

He wiped her feet in the hem of his robe first. Then he wrapped her in the mantle as carefully as he could. He sat down with his own back to the doors and folded her into his lap, wrapping his inner cloak around them both. After a moment's thought he undid the belt on his outer robe and pushed her inside that, too, close to his body. She wouldn't like it, he felt sure, but she would keep all her toes with them pressed against his embarrassingly soft belly. He could feel how cold she was. He had almost been too late.

 

After a couple of minutes she shifted position slightly, groaning into his underrobe.

 

“It's all right,” he said. “I have you.”

 

“Meep,” she said, or some noise like it, a small frightened squeak.

 

“We have to get you warm,” he said gently. “I'm not going to do anything to you.”

 

“Sorry,” she whispered.

 

“It's all right. Lots of women are afraid of an Orc,” he said. He felt her press closer, her face resting in the angle of his neck and shoulder. He could feel small warm breaths against his skin. He tried very hard not to enjoy that. It had been a long time since the last time he was this close to a woman, and that had been in Fourth Orsinium.

 

“No, it's not that. There was this one Orc when I was a girl,” she said weakly.

 

“Did he hurt you?” Dal asked.

 

“No. But he scared me. And then he died, and I found him looking all – it was very nasty.”

 

“Oh,” Dal said. “Well, I'm not him.”

 

“Of course not,” she agreed weakly.

 

There were a couple of minutes of thoughtful silence, in which Inés tucked her hands down between her body and his for greater warmth. They felt like icy rocks to Dal. He wrapped the cloak around them tighter.

 

“So how come you're out here in your shift?” he asked.

 

“You won't believe me,” she said glumly, head still resting on his shoulder. His hood was a much tighter fit with two people inside it. Dal found that he did not mind.

 

“Sure I will,” he said.

 

“It was Brynja and Callia and Lirane. They asked me to come picking berries and they tricked me into drinking a stamina drain, and they took my things and left me out here. By the time it wore off it was after Lockout.”

 

“Brynja did that? I thought we weren't allowed to kill other students,” he said. “I feel sure the Arch-Mage-in-residence was very firm on that point on our first day.”

 

Inés was vaguely aware that 'very firm on that point' was not a very Orcish turn of phrase according to what she had been taught about Orsimer, but she was tired, and it was hard to concentrate.

 

“Not allowed,” Inés said. “But who would know it was them? It'd look like I just... did something... crazy.”

 

Dal exhaled through his big flat nostrils, huffing warm air into her hair.

 

“Well, I understand if you don't want any more potions after that,” he said gently. “But I have one I use to keep the cold away out here. It's just alchemy, it's not liquor.”

 

Inés was quiet. Dal could almost feel the wheels turning in her head as she tried to think of a way to decline that would not be offensive to the only thing currently keeping her alive.

 

“I could drink some of it first, if that helps,” he said.

 

“Yes, please,” she said very softly.

 

“That's all right, then,” Dal said. He scooted around slightly so he could get to his flask, and Inés stepped directly on his cock as she tried not to fall out of his robe at the change in position. She made another small alarmed squeak and curled up tighter.

 

“Sorry. Sorry!”

 

“Are you afraid it hurt, or that I might have enjoyed it?” he asked dryly. There was an embarrassed, fearful silence. “All right, all right, sorry. Anyway, you would know if I were overly excited. You would be catapulted out into the snow, for one.”

 

Inés was startled into sudden laughter. It went on unexpectedly long, so that she almost choked. Dal patted her back patiently.

 

“So it's as big as a trebuchet?” she said. At least now she was shaking with laughter rather than fear. Dal took a swig of the potion and offered her the flask. She clasped the flat tin bottle in both hands and took a drink, coughing slightly at the harsh feeling of heat traveling from mouth to throat to belly.

 

“Nearly,” Dal said solemnly. He took the flask back and tucked it in an outer pocket this time.

 

“Braggart,” Inés said. He felt her starting to relax as the last of the cold was chased away by the potion.

 

“Oh no. No one's more humble than I am,” he said. He grinned into the darkness, smile stretched around his little tusks as he both heard and felt her giggle again. She sighed, stirring the small hairs on his neck. They were under the overhand that surrounded the courtyard's circular walk, but out in the yard where the bushes were, snow was gradually piling up. It gently petered out at the edges of the walkway, ending a good few feet before Dal's boots.

 

“I'm so tired, Dal,” Inés whispered. Her voice quavered. Once again, he felt sure he knew what she was thinking without the slightest need for telepathy.

 

“You had an entire day of study. Then you ran circles in the cold with bare feet,” he said. “Then you nearly froze. Now you're warm again. I think anyone would be tired, Inés. Don't worry. Nothing will happen to you as long as you're with me. But I have some restorative if you want to try that, too. It's what keeps me awake out here.”

 

“Why were you here?” she asked, and her voice was softer, not quite slurred.

 

“I was picking berries, too. They're more potent if you gather them at night. I'm still trying to figure out why, so I need a lot of them to experiment with. And they're produced all winter, of course, so it's not so difficult if I'm willing to spend the time and the restoratives.”

 

As he spoke, his voice calm and measured, he was aware of her breathing growing gradually shallower. The basso rumble of his words sent a warm and soothing vibration through her entire body, and by the time he had finished speaking she was fast asleep, exhausted.

 

It was a long night for Dal, sitting with his back to the door and a lap full of sleeping Breton. Occasionally he dozed, chin resting on her temple, but for most of it he was awake. As the night got colder he drank some of the resist himself, to ensure he kept warm for both of them. He ate a few snowberries as well, because they kept the fires inside going. He was dozing again when the lance of sunlight pierced the clouds and stabbed through his closed eyelids. He growled softly under his breath, squinting his eyes open. Behind him, he could hear the rattle of the lock as someone inside unlocked the doors at last. There was so much snow in the central garden that it completely hid the berry bushes, forming a big white torus around the sharp bright spire of magicka that rose from the well.

 

_We're outside the Hall of the Elements. I ought to take her back to her room._

 

 _I ought to take her to a Wizard first,_ he decided. He uncurled one arm from around Inés to gently shake her shoulder.

 

“It's morning,” he said.

 

“Nuh?” Inés blinked sleepily up at him, cheeks flushed in her small thin face. She'd been having a lovely and somewhat embarrassing dream, but she was afraid to ask if she'd made any noises while she slept. She had never been this close to a male of any species. And Gods, he was so very _male,_ the feel and heat and smell of him _._ There was always the faint overlay of Orc, but not in an unpleasant way. You got used to it.

 

“I'm going to get up now,” he said. “It's probably best if I carry you, for the sake of your feet. All right? Don't be afraid.”

 

“I'm not afraid,” she said, and was surprised to realize it was true. Dal carefully untucked her from his robe to tie it shut, still seeming no more inconvenienced by her weight than by his flask. He had a small soft stomach, but she could feel muscle rolling under the skin as he climbed to his feet. He turned and kicked the door with one foot, hard. It creaked open far enough for him to shove it the rest of the way, and then he stepped forward into the light and warmth of the Hall of the Elements.

 

The Wizard J'zon stood there staring at him. He was a gray-and-white tabby Khajiit with little black tufts to his sharply pointed ears. His tail lashed once.

 

“Sir, we have a problem,” Inés said timidly.

 

“Yes, I rather think that we do,” said the Khajiit. “Come to my office, Dal. We will talk.”

 

It was a busy morning after that. J'zon called Pendre in to examine Inés, and they healed her again just in case, and gave them both water and food and sent them off to their quarters to go to bed. It was Sundas anyway, normally a day without classes. They promised both to report the incident to the Arch-Mage-in-residence and to question Brynja and her friends. The grim light in Pendre's eye gave Dal somewhat more reassurance on this point. She lent Inés a pair of old shoes to walk back to the Hall of Attainment. Dal went with her, since their rooms were side by side anyway. The cold of the courtyard and garden was much less stinging when you only had to endure it for a few seconds.

 

“Lock your door,” he told her as she turned to go inside. She hesitated on the threshold, then nodded.

 

“Dal – I don't know how to thank you. I know how – how awkward all of that was and how stupid I've been - ”

 

“No, no,” he said. He risked a careful pat on the back. She did not flinch, which pleased him exceedingly. “A terrible thing happened to you. You did as well as anyone could have.”

 

She still dithered, gnawing her lip. Dal watched her for a moment. Then he held out one arm. Inés stepped in and squeezed him, though she could hardly get both arms around his waist.

 

“You're a good mer,” she said. “Can we talk again?”

 

“Yes,” Dal said. “I'd like that. You go take the day easy, Inés.”

 

He really expected that to be the end of it. She'd had a humiliating, terrifying experience, and once it was well behind her, he was sure the prejudice she felt against Orcs in general would reassert itself. The Empire wasn't built in a day.

 

Inés, for her part, locked her door, washed up in the basin as best she could, and changed her clothes and burrowed into bed. She dozed uneasily most of the day, twitching with fragments of nightmare.

 

That evening she dressed and went to eat in the dining hall, waddling slightly because she was wearing her student robe under her larger hand-me-downs. As long as she was awake, she couldn't seem to quite shake the cold. One or two people greeted her more warmly than had been typical as they stood in line with her to be handed plates of food. Today's was cod with lemon, a salad of winter greens, and a rare sweetroll each. It was better food than she had been used to, anyway. She was firmly handed a cup of soup and ordered to drink it all. There were one or two curious eyes on her, and as she passed other tables she heard fragments of conversation:

 

“ - Claiming they left a bathhouse open so she could get in and not freeze, and somebody else must've locked it.”

 

“Isn't that her?”

 

“The Porter who brings the Wizards their tea said all three of them are probably going to be expelled - ”

 

“Really? Brynja always seemed a decent sort. Always thought the Morin gel was a bit stuck up - ”

 

Dal gro-Galad came in while she was still poking at the dandelions and kale. His polite greeting to the Nord behind the serving counter was carefully moderated in volume, but Inés thought she could still feel it through the soles of her feet. He was wearing his little octagonal glasses, secured with their long arms because there was no way the bridge could pinch onto his flat nose. He blinked around at the room for a moment, responded to the greeting of an Argonian whom Inés did not know, and then trundled over to a table some ways away from hers. On the way past he nodded at her in a way that seemed friendly, but he didn't stop to talk. Inés nodded back, holding her soup mug in both hands.

 

She wasn't sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, she had left her room in the firm hope of talking to no one at all. The idea of trying to carry on a conversation seemed exhausting. On the other, she'd asked if she could talk to him again, and here she was doing nothing about that, and he obviously didn't expect her to. She felt shame that he though so little of her.

 

_He's probably thought it over and decided I might get hysterical and accuse him of taking liberties. I'll bet Galvyn's been handing it around that I led him on and then threw a fit._

 

On the other hand... Nobody had _said_ anything about Galvyn. He sat somewhat apart from the others himself, on the other side of the room at one of the smallest tables opposite a brown tabby Khajiit who seemed to be ignoring him. He obviously didn't have a big group of admiring cronies, which was almost surprising for someone rich and talented. Maybe she hadn't been the only one, and one of the others had been braver. He definitely had too much money to be thrown out without a warning on the first offense.

 

In her first assumption she was nearly correct. Dal _had_ been giving it some thought, during the brief period since their last meeting when he had not been asleep. It seemed to him that someone who was afraid constantly, as Inés seemed to be, was probably also afraid of him assuming an unwanted intimacy based on what had happened last night. And he still felt certain that her fear of Orcs would be back when she had recovered fully; perhaps it would be worse than before, connected with the fear of freezing. It had not been his experience that he would be given the benefit of the doubt. So he was polite, and passed by, and went and had a wash and got ready for bed.

 

He was surprised to hear a knock on his door. He threw on one of his older robes, gray undyed wool, and went to open it barefoot. Inés stood there looking almost cylindrical in her double layer of robes.

 

“Hallo, Inés,” he said.

 

“Hallo, Dal. You didn't come sit by me,” she said.

 

“I wasn't sure you'd want me to, once you thought about it,” said Dal.

 

She blushed up, protesting hotly.

 

“Well I _did_ want you to. And I want to come in there. Please,” she added hastily.

 

“Why?” Dal asked patiently.

 

“I am cold. You are warm.”

 

“I'm not just a hot water bottle,” he said dryly.

 

“I'm not afraid of a – a trebuchet either, you know,” she said. She looked down at her feet. “I mean of course I understand if you'd just rather not. I've looked in a mirror and so forth.”

 

Dal had to pause long enough to fight down the urge to laugh at the word _trebuchet._ He was aware of her looking up at him hopefully.

 

“You look a bit silly wearing, I will guess, four robes, but in actual fact you're very pretty,” he said. “I'm just not sure you'll want to see me again in the morning, and that'll make it awkward being your neighbor.”

 

“Well – we can't know until we try, can we?” she argued.

 

Dal looked down at Inés. She looked up at Dal.

 

“That's so,” he said. “All right, come in. I haven't blown out the candle yet.”

 

Inés slipped inside hurriedly, feeling her heart leap into her throat as Dal shut the door behind her and put the bolt across. His room looked basically like hers, with two straight walls and one that was curved with the curve of the outer wall. His shelves held more jars and bags and bottles, some containing mysterious colorful liquids she was unable to recognize; it was not hard to recognize the rooms of someone who would always be primarily an Alchemist.

 

“I know Tolfdir thinks you're a very good Enchanter,” Dal said. “Why don't you enchant one of your old robes to keep you warmer?”

 

“I can't afford a soul gem,” Inés explained, trying not to let her voice rise into an anxious squeak. “And if I could, I don't know if I'd be brave enough to kill something to fill it.”

 

She waited for him to tell her she was being silly, but he just nodded.

 

“That's a problem. Maybe we can talk about that later,” he said. He went and sat on the edge of the bed, producing a protesting creak. “All right, come sit here.” He patted one thigh with an enormous hand. The fingernails were very blunt, tiny black hairs on the backs of his knuckles. He was wearing linen trousers under his robe, but very obviously nothing under those. She could see the line of something not that long but extremely fat lying against his right leg. At the top of his robe there were a few wiry black chest hairs as well. She was aware of all of it, every smallest detail, as she went to sit on Dal's knee. He ran his hand over the back of her hair, very carefully, very gently, just once. Then he leaned down slowly, his darker green lips parted slightly.

 

Inés pressed upward into the kiss clumsily, but eagerly, grabbing hold of his big face with both hands. He chuckled deep in his chest and pulled back slightly so she would stop mashing his tusks, but he did not stop her. His lips felt warm and firm against hers, shaping words that she did not know against the sensitive skin. His hand curled around her lower back, heavy and warm, and with the other he pulled her closer. He seemed slow to her, and she realized that he was waiting for her to panic and run away. She felt close to that, shivering in a confusion of fear and desire, but she pressed close to his body as she broke away to breathe, kissing the edge of his collarbone lightly. Muscle rolled in his massive shoulders. Ines ran her hand tentatively over his belly, feeling him breathe. She had remembered right, and there was a little roll of fat around his waist, but his body did not feel weak to her. Not at all.

 

It wasn't as though she'd never kissed a man before. Just... Not very often. And usually they were pawing at her clothes at once, huffing and puffing and carelessly mauling her breasts. She had not enjoyed it either time.

 

Her clothes. She was starting to feel warm all over now, and they were uncomfortably hot. She turned redder, remembering how stupid she must look, and reached down to undo the outermost robe and start peeling it off. Dal waited until he was sure that was what she was doing – she was aware of his eyes on her, big and yellow behind his glasses – and then he helped. His fingers were careful, slow, if anything increasing her impatience. He chuckled again.

 

“The sweetest smelling of all onions,” he said.

 

She cracked up, giggling as she tried to wriggle out of the robe under that one. Two layers down. Two to go.

 

“You silver-tongued devil,” said Inés.

 

“I am known for my eloquence.”

 

“Along with your humility,” she said. “As I believe we established yesterday.”

 

“Mm hm.” She was standing in an increasingly larger pile of garments as she succeeded in getting the third robe off, leaving only her underrobe and shift. Her nipples stood out hard through them both. She looked down at them and up at Dal. He had a musing look on his face that made her feel – odd. He still didn't believe she would stay, was that it?

 

Inés was not one to be easily provoked, ordinarily, but now she felt herself seized with the perverse desire to see him react. She reached for the lump down his right leg and ran her hand over it, head tilted almost painfully to try and watch his face. The hand working at her final belt paused. Dal blinked rapidly, and she was pleased to see a darker green rise to his cheeks and forehead. Under her hand his cock grew plumper.

 

She straightened up and reached out to take off his glasses and carefully set them aside on the night stand. He let her, one hand cupping her hip.

 

“You think I will run away,” she said. “But I won't.”

 

“Well, we'll see,” he said. “It is never to late to change your mind, understand? I imagine you've been told some things about Orcs that are true and some that are not, but there will never be a point where I am unable to stop when you want me to stop.”

 

“I would like for you to remove my shift now, Dal,” said Inés. “Faster.”

 

He grinned suddenly, teeth yellow-white in the dim. He was a little rougher pulling off the last robe, but not so much he tore it. He had not forgotten how few sets of clothes she owned. He paused to run his hands up and down her waist as she stood in her shift, eyes tracing the lines of her body. She did not feel the creeping sensation of loathing that she had felt when Galvyn looked at her. She felt a feeling of tingling, expanding warmth in her belly radiating downward and outward, the beginning of a gradual tightening between her legs. Inés rested her hands on his heavy forearms, feeling the movement of tendons and the slide of muscle under the skin as he moved. The veins were very dark under the green skin, visible even in the dim light.

 

She watched the shift of vessels under flesh, brightly aware of everything, as he reached for the hem of her shift and tugged it up over her head. There was a moment when she could not see, and then she stood naked in front of Dal, each breast one small handful, nipples pink and hard inside their pale near-shapeless aureolas. She shaved all of herself as often as time allowed, painstakingly, with a cheap razor she had to strop on an old boot. There was a very thin stubble of dark hair on the small pink mound of her mons. Dal reached out to run his finger up and down it, making her shiver. Every nerve seemed more awake than it had ever been.

 

“I want -” she started, and then turned even redder, turning her face away. Dal reached up gently to pat her cheek, nudging her face back toward him.

 

“Tell me,” he said.

 

“I want to take your robe off,” she said. “Would you allow a woman to do so?”

 

“I will allow you to do so,” he said. Inés leaned in impulsively to kiss him again, more careful of his tusks this time, and then reached down to undo the belt of his robe, fumbling in her haste. There was another awkward moment of bouncing on the edge of the bed as they both got him out of his trousers, and then she stood looking down wide-eyed. After a second she swallowed.

 

Dal's cock was only half hard and it was already as long as her hand, and fat. It was a little bigger at the glans end, and it curved slightly upward, the foreskin stretched slightly over it and already trying to slide back on its own as everything under it expanded. It was darker green than the rest of him, the veins swollen and black-looking. There was thick black hair around the base, obviously trimmed, and it ran in a dense line all the way up to his navel. At first glance it looked as big as her wrist. Fully hard it must be as big as her arm, she thought.

 

“Oh dear,” she said weakly. “I thought you were joking.”

 

“Only a little,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “No, that's not going inside you on the first go. We'll have to start with a finger.”

 

“A what?” she asked blankly.

 

“A finger. Come here.” He put his hand on her lower back to nudge her forward. “Put your knee on my thigh.”

 

She obeyed. The bulk of the Orc's body radiated heat like a stove. Inés wanted to bathe in it. She ran her hands up and down his shoulders and neck, her eyes half-shut.

 

“So warm...”

 

Dal ran his hand down over her mons slowly, giving her time to decide if she wanted him to stop, and then his hot fingers glided down between her outer lips and over the small sensitive nub above the inner ones. Inés gasped.

 

“Oh, do that again.”

 

Inés felt his cock get thicker between them, something that confused her momentarily; but she did not mind having the length of it pressed between them, belly to belly, as he rubbed his fingers slowly in a circle.

 

“Nobody's ever touched your clit before?” he said.

 

“My - no,” she admitted, eyes wide and distant. Little throbs of pleasure fingered out from his touch. She could feel it in her spine. “Kisses, grabbing at my breasts, and then in. I've always just thought I was a bit frigid.”

 

“No. Not at all,” Dal said. “Most women need some attention here. Sex is not only for making children.” His other hand kneaded her lower back, slowly, but hard, a different feeling but a wonderful one.

 

“What do I do?” she asked.

 

“What you're doing now is fine. If you want to do something for me after, we will talk about that.”

 

“After what – oooh.” He had switched to rubbing with the pad of his thumb, and she felt a finger gently traveling down over the slick inner lips to find the opening below. She was warm, and wet, and ready, and though she had never enjoyed having a cock inside her she was startled to find that his finger did give her pleasure. Less than his thumb currently was, but still, it felt good. And then he began to make a beckoning motion inside her, the pad of his finger rubbing against the front wall of her quim, and she gasped again. Small wonderful waves of feeling seemed to bounce between the two points of contact, building against each other. “Gods, that's so lovely.”

 

Without thinking about it she rocked her hips slightly against his hand, in rhythm with his strokes. As she moaned into his shoulder, resting her cheek against the muscle, she felt him get even harder between them. She could feel something building inside her, a strange feeling of desperate anticipation, and for a moment she almost felt panic, the urge to pull away and run; but it felt so good, and she wanted to know what was about to happen. Inés held on. There was a moment of feeling poised strangely at the edge of something vast and strange, unstoppable.

 

“Something's happening,” she said, and then shuddered as pleasurable fireworks seemed to explode from her clit and the small sensitive spot inside her at the same time, rolling up and down her body in splendid overpowering waves.

 

“Dal – oh – Dal!” She felt it all the way out to the tips of her fingers and toes. She felt it in the top of her head. She felt it even against the place in her back that his hand touched, and it seemed to make it go on longer. The leg she was standing on went weak, and if she had not been leaning on Dal she might have fallen down. She heard herself gasping stupidly, mouth open like a fish out of water, but she did not know how to stop.

 

She was not sure, afterward, how long it actually went on. It might have been one minute or five minutes or a week. Dal kept rubbing until she pushed at his chest to get him to stop. Inés was left with a feeling of heightened sensation all over, a relaxed, pleasant awareness of everything around her. It was a feeling like the smell after rain, calm and satisfied.

 

“How did you do that?” she asked.

 

“It's just an orgasm,” he said. “You can do it yourself. Most people can. You do what feels good and it gradually builds up until it happens.”

 

“Oh, but – touching yourself's unhealthy, isn't it?” Inés protested, raising her head from his shoulder. She had certainly been told so.

 

“What, no,” Dal said. “Why would it be unhealthy? Don't you ever want it when you can't have sex? Touching yourself is a way to not be tense all the time.” He blinked thoughtfully. “Actually that's probably partly _why_ you are tense all the time.”

 

“I don't feel tense right now,” she said.

 

“Good.” He leaned in to kiss her again. She responded with enthusiasm, one hand questing downward to find his shaft. She was surprised to learn she could fit her hand almost all the way around it. It had seemed so gigantic.

 

“And what do I do with this? What feels good to you?”

 

“Run your hand up and down,” he said. “All the way to the end, not quite all the way to the base. A little tighter – oh, yes. Like that.” She was rewarded with seeing his eyes unfocus slightly as she did. There was a raised line along the bottom side of the cock, not easily seen in the dark, but she could feel it under her fingers.

 

“And what's this?” She shifted her grip slightly, turning to sit on his thigh so she could put both hands around it and run one thumb up and down that. He did not seem to hear her question immediately, and Inés was pleased to find him momentarily speechless. Eventually he shook his head, blinking. He laid his arm around her waist, resting his weight on the other one on the mattress.

 

“It's a frenulum. It – it feels really good when you do that.”

 

“What about the um. Below it.”

 

“They're very sensitive so I'd rather you – oh – maybe not this – ah.”

 

His scrotum was wrinkled, but it felt as though he'd gone to the no doubt considerable effort of shaving it when she ran her fingers lightly over it to test. Because he'd asked she went back to hauling both hands up and down the shaft. It was hard to make the muscles in her arms do anything. She felt warm and lazy, a very fine sweat on her face.

 

“I bet you can do this with one hand,” she said. “So I imagine I'm going to be rather bad at it compared to what you can do yourself.”

 

“A true warrior always prefers to have a woman handle his sword,” he managed to get out. He was breathing faster, and she could feel his chest rising and receding against her left side as she sat on his thigh.

 

Inés laughed.

 

“It's too fat for a sword. An Orcish war club, possibly.”

 

Dal's sudden loud laugh startled her, and she paused for a second, eyes big. It seemed to boom and echo all around the room. He'd forgotten to try and keep it quiet. After a second he stifled himself with his own arm, shoulders shaking. His cock bobbed in place, the end of it twitching. A fine bead of something clear was forming at the tip.

 

“Sorry – don't stop, please.”

 

Inés went on rubbing, giggling. “I've made you laugh.”

 

“Yes, Inés, you have. Soon you'll make me come, too – gods, that's good - so you might want to get my robe - ”

 

“I could do that, but then I'd have to let go,” she leaned up to purr in his ear. “I guess we'll just have to have a wash instead.” She saw the yellow eyes start to roll upward as her breath puffed against his ear, and then a growl emerged from Dal's lips that was so deep she felt it through her feet. A mixture of fear and exhiliration pulsed through her, and she was startled to feel that throb of warmth in her cunt as his cock jumped in her hands. A white rope of seed spurted against her arms and belly, once, and again, and then a third time. It got gradually less voluminous each time. By the fifth and six throb of his ejaculation nothing much came out. The smell that filled the room was a little familiar, and she associated it with experiences she had not enjoyed, but now there was also the smell of her own aroused body and of Orc, an intoxicating cocktail of scents that probably would disgust her in any other moment but this.

 

“Stop, stop,” he breathed, half-laughing. Inés eased off, hands still resting gently on the shaft so that she could feel it start to slacken.

 

“It gets like that at the end for you, too?” she asked. “More sensitive?”

 

“Yes, but a man has to stop for a little at that point. Some women can keep on coming. Another time we'll perform an experiment,” Dal said.

 

Inés laughed again at this introduction of academic language into a conversation held between two people that were naked and covered in sweat and semen.

 

“We'll have to be sure and take careful notes,” she said.

 

“You're silly. Let's have a wash, and then I will hold you. Will you sleep in here?”

 

“Yes, but let's open the window for a minute,” she said.

 

“Oh, yes.” He went to do that as she went to the basin to wipe off first. She still felt wet inside, but the feeling of puffiness had gradually faded. She was so warm that she didn't even mind the first blast of cold air. She felt invincible.

 

“Dal?” she said, as she sloshed a small amount of water over herself, just enough to attend her to the bathhouse and privy.

 

“Yes, Inés.”

 

“You got harder,” she said. “When you were rubbing me. Even though I wasn't touching your cock.”

 

“It arouses me to hear a woman enjoying herself,” he said. “And when you're really enjoying yourself you close tighter around my finger. When you come it squeezes harder yet.”

 

“You're not like most men,” she said. She debated what to do with the now seed-covered rag and ultimately dropped it into the wicker hamper by the clothes cupboard.

 

“Oh, I probably am,” Dal said. “I think you've run across a couple of bad ones.” He opened the cupboard and got another washcloth as he went over to the basin. Inés climbed lazily into one set of her hand-me-down robes without even bothering with her shift, shoving rest into the foot of the bed under the sheets.

 

“Like Galvyn Indoril,” she said. “Ugh.”

 

“What happened there?” Dal asked. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“Oh, it never went far. He asked me to tutor him and then he said some nasty things and tried to grab me. I knocked him over with a shield and ran away,” Inés said. “He talked a big line about how he could make me do anything he wanted, but – actually that's a bit odd. He never really tried to cast a spell.”

 

“Did you tell anyone?” Dal asked.

 

“No! I don't want to get thrown out. He's rich and his family is powerful,” Inés said. She burrowed into the bed naked, curling up tightly under the draft from the cold window. She was starting to feel it now.

 

“They're far away from here, and I doubt there's much they can do to the College,” Dal said. “It's more likely he'd be thrown out than you. He ought not be allowed to go around threatening other students. What if you hadn't got away?”

 

“It's probably too late now,” she said. “I'm going to the bath. I'll be back.”

 

“Well, I won't bother you about it,” Dal said calmly. “I'll go in a couple of minutes.” He was drying himself on the same rag of a towel she'd used.

 

The bathhouse and privies were connected to the Hall of Attainment by a broad and windowless hallway and a thick oilskin curtain, to contain the steam. None of it was segregated as to sex, but the wooden cubicles of both portions were private. The bathhouse had its own boiler, stoked by one of the college employees, and while it was burning low this late at night the water was warm enough to make Inés wish to linger. Still – if she didn't hurry back Dal might think she wasn't _coming_ back. She still remembered what he'd said in another life, before that moment of supernal pleasure had changed everything forever.

 

The Hall of Attainmen was not completely dark even now. There would always be someone working late on an experiment – she grinned almost drunkenly to herself at that word now. Inés crept as quietly as she could back to Dal's room and tapped on the door.

 

He opened it, and the hopeful expression on his big face turned something in her chest all around. She slid inside and shut the door and put her arms around him to squeeze him tight. He had the same old robe on again, but no trousers. He hugged her back, chin on top of her head.

 

“I'll get in first,” he said. “The wall's cold. Let me close the window.” The room was colder now, but the smell was mostly cleared out. He fanned the window a couple of times before he fastened it shut, then went to climb into the bed. He watched bemusedly as Inés stripped and shoved her robe in with the rest of them under the covers.

 

“They'll be toasty by tomorrow,” she explained. She wriggled under the covers and curled herself against Dal with her back to his soft belly. He put his arms around her, surrounding her with fervent heat, and pulled the covers up over them. Inés sighed happily. “Oh, that's nice.” She had felt good before, but lying down felt even better, buttery relaxation spreading through every sinew until she felt as though she were made of jelly. “It's unfair,” she murmured sleepily. “No woman who's ever been close to something this warm would ever want to go...”

 

Dal chuckled softly – she felt it rather than heard it.

 

“I will never send you away,” he whispered into her hair, his words slightly slurred. He was already falling asleep. Men did fall asleep awfully fast afterward, but this time she found it endearing, a source of pride. _I did that. It was me._ She did not feel used and disgusted, as she sometimes had before. She felt glad and unashamed, and she surrendered readily to the velvet embrace of sleep, held safe in Dal's arms.

 

In the morning they both had to hurry away to different classes; they only shared the Enchanting lecture on Middas, and he was in some sort of advanced class on Morndas that she had not yet thought to ask about. He was like a sluggish bear, snorfling and blinking in the morning light. She was amused by the contrast to how certain and articulate he had been last night. Inés put on one robe while he was still sitting up staring stupidly at the window. She kissed Dal's cheek, feeling an unaccustomed tender thrill as she ran her fingers through his short hair, and then she grabbed up the rest of her clothes and ran next door to deal with her tangled hair and get herself ready. Her body still felt warm and relaxed, and she went with only one set of robes in completely comfort.

 

The world seemed brighter, different than it had been yesterday. Everything was just... better. Still of a fearful temperament, she felt a little less nervous than usual, returning people's greetings with greater cheer and less diffidence. One or two who had always thought her a snob were surprised at how nice she suddenly was. The Wizard Pendre told Inés after the Alchemy lecture that Brynja had been expelled and her two accomplices were on probation, closely watched.

 

Galvyn Indoril was the only dark spot. She was unable to avoid being placed next to him in Enchanting class, and she felt his eyes on her as he worked at enchanting the cheap amulet (they'd all been given one). The one time she glanced over he smiled at her in a way that made her want to go and have another wash. She ignored him studiously as she concentrated on imbuing the little disc of copper with the ability to resist magicka. They were allowed to keep their results. She carried her little iron healing ring in her pocket now, paranoid about getting shut outside or some other dreadful thing. Besides, it was the first enchanted thing she'd ever had.

 

That night she was talking to Tolfdir about frost spells – she was still miserable at anything to do with Destruction – when a shadow caught her attention, a movement in the corner of her eye. She continued the conversation, but a quick glance found Galvyn leaning against the wall in the shadow of one of the pillars that defined the little walkway around the outside of the rounded Hall of the Elements. His arms were folded, and he wasn't looking at her at all, chin on his chest, but his expression was furious. Afterward she _ran_ across the courtyard back to the Hall of Attainment and the safety of Dal's room.

 

That night was a two-finger event, putting any such worry out of her mind for some time. Dal cupped her breast with his free hand, always very gentle, and that was good. He always treated her body as though it were made of glass. Perhaps to an Orc she might as well be. She discovered that Dal got all shuddery and weak when she put her mouth on the end of his cock, though she couldn't fit much of it, and this was such a pleasing effect that she resolved to make it part of every encounter from then on. Afterward he was so glazed and silly that he nearly nodded off before they could get out of bed to go and wash.

 

While they lay together afterward she asked,

 

“How do you know all of this? The things that you do with me?”

 

“My father spoke to each of us when we reached the age of first majority,” Dal said. “And then my mother, to tell us the simplest bits about women and cycles and children. The rest I learned from... Well. Will it offend you to know that there were two others before you?”

 

“No,” said Inés, turning onto her back so that she could look at his face, head pillowed on his arm. She stroked the length of his ragged pointed ear. “But I am curious.”

 

“Mmn.” He slitted his eyes half shut, enjoying her touch. “Both were Orcs. There was one whom I would have stayed with forever, but she had her own plans. The other was trained by my father as a warrior. We entertained one another, but neither of us ever intended more. Orcish women are not taught to be shy about saying what they want.” His eyes slid over to her face, and he turned to kiss the inside of her wrist, a wonderful little flutter, the slightest indentation from his tusks. “And neither should you be, Inés.”

 

“Do you wish I was an Orc?” she asked quietly. He snorted.

 

“No. Your body is new to me, but it is beautiful. I would have you be free to tell me what pleases you. Every woman is different in what she enjoys physically. One may be provoked to multiple climaxes by something that gives no pleasure at all to another.”

 

She turned a little red. Frank discussion sometimes embarrassed her more than the act itself.

 

“I hardly saw my mother and father,” she said. “Sometimes they were at the far end of the dinner table. My old nurse told me about, well, the moon and pregnancy, but not about pleasure. I thought women – it's rather indelicate.”

 

“I think, under these circumstances, it may be excused,” Dal said solemnly. “As long as the forms are observed.” Inés giggled and slapped him on the chest, not hard.

 

“I thought women peed from their cunts until I was seventeen. And then I only learned different because I stole a hand mirror and looked at myself closely enough to see the tiny hole. I felt quite wicked.”

 

“A lot of children think that,” Dal said.

 

“In High Rock seventeen is old enough to contract a marriage,” Inés said. “It is considered young, but it is lawful.”

 

Dal grunted.

 

“Is this typical, for Breton education?”

 

“I don't really know,” Inés admitted. “The first time I left Chateau Morin was when I ran away to come here. I didn't want – well, it is cowardly to an Orc, I'm sure. I didn't want to fight my cousin Michel. She could already cast Fireball and I only had my one little heal, similar to the one Tolfdir taught us all. And if I'd refused to duel her I would've been thrown out anyway, so I thought I'd pick my own time.”

 

“To demand a duel of someone you know is both younger and not your equal in instruction is dishonorable,” Dal said firmly. “If you had been taught the same and one was weaker - but you were not taught, were you?”

 

“No,” Inés said. “I learned my one spell from a book. It took me almost five years before I could cast it more than once a week and actually succeed.” She tilted her head at him curiously. “So the matter of Ulfric Stormcloak and High King Torygg - ?”

 

“That case is more difficult, to my way of thinking,” Dal said. “ As High King, Torygg had every advantage of instruction, but it was Ulfric who had learned the Shout. In that case I think that it is a matter of Ulfric's greater accomplishment rather than their chances being unequal.” He laid his head on the pillow, resting his hand on her stomach under the covers. It felt heavy and warm. She laced her fingers with his, savoring the heat. Perhaps it was her imagination that his aura warmed her as well, but she still enjoyed it, bathed in the mellow intricate feeling of Alchemy and something strange and sharp that she did not quite recognize, at least not in this form.

 

“But I am not a Nord,” said Dal. “And perhaps an Orc is more apt to sympathize with the rebellion of a stubborn native.”

 

“I agree that it's not really ours to worry about,” said Inés. “It's just – High Rock has never worked in the way that Morrowind and Skyrim seem to work. It's strange to me that one man could rule so many.”

 

“Find a hill, become a king?” Dal said.

 

“Just so. It's always been like that.”

 

“There's something else bothering you,” Dal said.

 

She looked at him sidelong.

 

“Why do you think so?”

 

“I am twice the talker you are, ordinarily.”

 

“But Orcs are such a grim and taciturn race,” she said, her voice quavering with laughter.

 

“Why do you think they sent me here, tiny wolflet?” he asked blandly.

 

“Tiny _what?”_

 

“Don't change the subject.” He removed his hand from her stomach to gently poke the end of her nose.

 

“It's Galvyn Indoril,” she said. “I think he – I think he tried to corner me in the Hall of the Elements tonight. I was talking to Tolfdir and I saw him lurking around looking so very angry. I ran back here as fast as I could.”

 

Dal grunted. “I think you and I had better have a talk with Galvyn,” he said. “In front of witnesses. He cannot be so stupid as to attempt a Charm in front of one of the Wizards.”

 

“I don't want to get thrown out,” Inés said.

 

“You won't be,” Dal said firmly. “They cannot allow the College's reputation to be tarnished by this kind of behavior. He is rich, but they are decent people. What about Brynja?”

 

“I will go if you come with me,” she said quietly. Dal wound her tightly in his arms, pressed against his chest. Coarse little hairs brushed her face.

 

“Good. Don't worry, Inés. Whatever happens, you will be safe.”

 

She slept surprisingly well. It was hard to be afraid with the slow, certain drum of Dal's heart so close to her ears.

 

The next day during the midday break in classes they went to see J'zon. He was in the Hall of Elements, laying out sprigs of dried herb on a table on separate little bits of paper. There were grains of wheat and little bits of dried mountain flower, and a flask of water and a mortar and pestle stood on the table beside them. Inés lurked half behind Dal, heart in her throat, as he explained.

 

“Apprentice Inés, is this so?” J'zon asked. She nodded.

 

“Yes. He – he grabbed me and I threw him back with my shield. I really think he's following me between classes, Sir.”

 

“Hm. Well, we can't have that sort of behavior. Let's see what he has to say for himself,” J'zon said. He went to the door and grabbed a passing elder student, a clean-cut and serious Imperial. “Evoker Norius, go and find Galvyn Indoril and send him to me here, will you? Just tell him J'zon wishes to see him.”

 

“Yes, Wizard,” Norius said, and hurried away to complete his errand so that he would still have time to find lunch in his rooms. Shortly after, Galvyn came in, wearing black and gray silk robes that were much finer than the student ones she and Dal now wore. He always made Inés feel very drab.

 

“You wished to see me?” he asked, politely enough. He glanced at Inés with a slight raising of one steeply arched brow. She reddened, but stood her ground beside Dal.

 

“Apprentice Inés says you've been making unwanted advances,” J'zon said.

 

“Bah,” Galvyn sneered. “She would. She loved it. She's just changed her mind because Dal's been tupping her since and she has to pretend she wants his ugly green cock.”

 

“How _dare_ you,” hissed Inés.

 

“I am a daring mer, my dear,” he said. Dal raised a heavy brow. “I'd challenge you for your slander, but we all know that wouldn't be fair, now don't we? You're just an enchanter. Perhaps in ten years you'll be able to wield a staff that might be a threat to me, but certainly not now.”

 

“I am not just an enchanter,” Dal pointed out calmly.

 

“How charmingly gallant,” Galvyn said, tugging a black glove from one hand as he spoke. Then he slapped Dal with it. It made roughly as much impression as a fly striking a windowpane. Dal just looked down at him in mild amusement. “You are no Orc if you refuse a challenge after _that.”_

 

J'zon stepped between them, one ear flat, the stony aura of a powerful Alterationist swelling around him. Compared to the others it was awe-inspiring. It raised the hairs along Inés's spine.

 

“Stop it at once,” he said. “Galvyn Indoril, you are twice reprimanded. We do _not_ resolve disputes with trial by combat here.”

 

“You ought to allow it,” Galvyn said. “If you don't allow it here, supervised, you can't stop it happening later, off the College grounds. Anything might happen then.”

 

“I don't trust him not to ambush us,” Inés said.

 

Galvyn rolled his eyes.

 

J'zon's tail twitched. “If I do allow this, no one is to take a life, understood? It is to the yield or to incapacitation. Otherwise the winner will not only be expelled, but submitted to Imperial justice. Do not think that your family's money will save you in that case, Galvyn Indoril.”

 

“I'm willing,” Dal said. “Am I allowed one potion?”

 

“As far as I'm concerned you're allowed as many potions as you like,” Galvyn said, shrugging a disdainful shoulder as he tugged his glove back on. “It won't matter.”

 

J'zon stepped back, both ears at half-mast. “Very well. Don't knock the table over. Apprentice Inés, if you would join me here, please.”

 

She left Dal's side reluctantly to stand against the pillar with J'zon. Dal was looking at Galvyn, not at her. He didn't seem particularly angry. He just downed a potion from his belt and took up a position opposite the Dunmer in the center of the great round floor. Students were trickling in from outside, early for class, and they edged around between the pillars on the walkway, whispering to one another.

 

Galvyn began by gesturing once, hissing something in Dunmeris. He vanished from view. Inés covered her mouth with one hand. Full invisibility was not a beginner's spell. She was genuinely afraid for Dal, heart pounding in her chest. Dal raised one hand as a sphere of green magicka struck him seemingly from nowhere, but it didn't seem to do much. He shook his head once, like a dog leaving the water. Then he swatted the air on his right. There was an _oof,_ and Galvyn Indoril suddenly popped into view, staggering back. Dal reached out, flaring his fingers, and a green ribbon darted from his palm to Galvyn's chest. The elf staggered, gasping, then sank to his knees.

 

“I didn't think you'd actually do it,” he said. “I – I'm sorry, Inés.” He started to slump over onto his side, his voice becoming weak and slurred. “Only way to keep everyone from knowing I'm a – sword swallower -” The words trailed off as he rolled onto his face, eyes shut.

 

All three of them stared down at him.

 

“Do what?” Dal asked, his voice confused.

 

“I – I don't think he can tell some colors apart,” Inés said. She ran to grab onto Dal's arm, nudging the Dunmer with a toe. “He called my green robe red once.”

 

“So he thought it was a health drain?” Dal said. “What an idiot. Does he think J'zon would just stand by and let me kill him?”

 

“It appears to me likely that the Apprentice here has not been thinking clearly for some while,” J'zon said dryly. He knelt, laying a clawed hand on the Dunmer's shoulder. Magicka bloomed around his fingers.

 

“And why's he care if anyone knows he can do circus tricks?” Inés said. Dal choked.

 

“Erm – he means he likes men, Inés. In a personal sense.”

 

“How would that even work?” she asked blankly. She had vaguely heard that it was possible for men to love other men, but she had always been confused about what one might call the procedures. It occurred to her belatedly that men had tongues and fingers, same as she did, even if she was ignorant of anything else.

 

“I'll explain later,” Dal said.

 

Galvyn groaned and sat up, clutching his head.

 

“Oh, gods. I'm not dead.”

 

“Of course you are not dead,” J'zon said. “Get up. You are banned from classes for two days for being an idiot. Go and sleep it off.”

 

Galvyn staggered to his feet, red-on-red eyes wide in horror as he realized how many people had seen. His mouth folded down at the corners and he shut his eyes for a second, shoulders stooping.

 

“None of this would've happened if you'd just told everyone the first time,” he said wearily to Inés, and then he turned to walk quickly from the Hall, face dark with humiliation.

 

“All right, now shoo, both of you,” J'zon said. “I have a beginning Alchemy class to teach, and you have your own classes to get to.”

 

Dal walked with Inés to her Alteration lecture out at the other end of the Courtyard, where there was a large tub of faintly steaming water and the wizard Pendre standing next to it with a smile that did not bode well for today's students.

 

“He wanted me to tell,” Inés said slowly. “And he didn't ever plan to do anything. That's why he never tried to charm me to begin with.”

 

“He would be reprimanded, but probably not thrown out,” Dal said. “And everyone would know he couldn't be trusted around women, so he'd have an excuse for not being around any.”

 

“But why should he care so much about that?” Inés asked in puzzlement. “I haven't been here very long, but I did hear Ivan and Adrian talk about getting wedded at the Chapel of Mara when they could afford to travel there. Even if I don't know how it works, I know the Nords allow it.”

 

“He probably hasn't been paying much attention,” Dal said. “He seems to me to be a little absorbed in himself. Obviously his own people don't feel the same way. Or if they do, he's an Indoril, and there is hardly anyone left of most of Morrowind's older Houses. He's probably expected to marry a woman and have children.”

 

“Now I feel a bit sorry for him,” she admitted.

 

“Well, the important thing is that he won't be bothering you again,” Dal said. He kissed her on top of the head, right out in the sun where anyone could see them. “And tonight...”

 

“Orcish war club training,” she said, and grinned at him before she turned to go to her class. The sun on the Courtyard was not warm, but it was ever so bright.

 


	3. Galvyn and Menali: Textures of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The protagonists of this chapter are a male Dunmer and a male Altmer.

Menalirien had never been happier in his life. It had been a bad time, getting from the Breton territory of High Rock across the border to Skyrim, and then all the way East to Winterhold. Some of it was a blur of pain and fever, and some of it he remembered more than he wished. By the time he arrived he was so delirious he could hardly pronounce his own name. Now everyone was calling him by an abbreviated version. Ah, well. He wasn't that attached to it. It had belonged to an uncle who, by all accounts, was a bit of a bastard.

  


The important thing was that now he was in a wonderful place where there was food and clothes and his feet would never be cold again. He had his _own room._ It had a bit of a lumpy mattress, but the important thing was that there _was_ a mattress. No more being crammed in a garrett with two other young mer hoping to win an apprenticeship and scrabbling for coin however they could in the meantime. No more risking dreadful fates to beg, borrow or steal books so that he could learn the simplest of conjurations. He was still built like a toast rack, slim-shouldered and lanky, but that was mostly heredity, you couldn't get away from it. His hair, almost the same shade of golden yellow as his skin, was thicker and healthier than it had ever been. He was letting it grow out so he could braid it, enjoying the feeling of it sliding through his fingers.

  


Here if you were respectful to the cranky old Orc who ran the Arcanaeum he let you just sit in there reading things all day long. Oh, there were lectures, but nobody checked to see if he was going to them. For the most part he was free to get on with his education in splendid isolation. A couple of times Menali had succeeded in hiding in the stacks and staying up to read the night through.

  


He had to put in his time at the Laundries two evenings a week, because he had come without any endowment for his upkeep, but it wasn't bad. The Nord ladies who ran the catacombs of steam and soap below the College's main floor but above the mess of uninhabited tunnels below were kind to him, and sometimes there were other students down there who were kind, too. He was vaguely aware of an Argonian girl with mostly gray scales whose aura tasted faintly of secrets and lies, a handsome brown-haired Imperial who throbbed with the taste of smoke and pain, and a huge Orc with tiny glasses who was only there because the little Breton he was with had to do a rotation too – taste of herb and the glitter of enchantment, faint, bitter and sweet. He was never quite sure how many could taste him in return.

  


There was a bit of trouble over the boots. They'd given him a pair, and a pair of softer shoes for when he was going to be indoors all day. He carefully stuffed the place where his left big toe should be with scavenged scraps of fabric. By the time he made it to the bridge connecting the College with the little town of Winterhold, it had been too frostbitten to save. The rest of that foot didn't feel quite right, numb and tingly, but he was mostly used to it now. He checked it carefully every day for unfelt injuries, and he was mostly to a point where he didn't limp. But he had nightmares about it still. He spent four Sundases in a row in Winterhold begging for chores to do so that he could earn enough money to buy extra pairs of socks. He never wore less than two. He was hoarding coin now against the hope of another pair of boots. It worried him constantly that something might possibly happen to his current pair. And then one day he was looking for a quiet place to read, creeping down the stairs toward the Laundries, and he stumbled into a door because he was tired and it creaked open and he was looking at shelves and racks of robes and cloaks and socks and _boots._

  


He knew what he was doing was shameful as he stuffed an extra pair under his robe and hurried back to hide it under his bed, but the fear eased a little. Menali knew he ought not go back. He couldn't seem to stop himself. He had his tenth pair in his hand when the Wizard J'zon walked in. The gray-and-white Khajiit wore practical layered robes of blue and teal, saying over his shoulder,

  


“But why should anyone bother to -”

  


Menali yelped and threw the boots up into the air. J'zon twitched, ears flat, and Menali was looking at a wavering disc of shield between himself and the Wizard. Behind him stood one of the servants, an Elderly Nord called Berti, peering fearfully around his shoulder with an iron held high in one hand.

  


The Altmer stood shaking, arms over his head. He could not quite hunch up enough to make himself shorter than J'zon and still remain standing. The Khajiit was of an average height, and Menali had always been inconveniently tall.

  


“Apprentice Menali,” said J'zon. The shield gently faded at a dismissive wave of his hand. “Are you not aware that stealing from the College is a serious offense?”

  


“Please don't expel me,” Menali said. His voice was soft, always a little breathless, not the strident and powerful note most common in his species. “I am so terribly sorry. I knew it was wrong, but -”

  


“You've been selling them in town, is that it?” Berti asked. Menali looked at the ground, away from her angry, disappointed face.

  


“No, no,” he said. “They're all in my closet. If you come with me you can have them all back.”

  


“Show me,” said J'zon.

  


So Menali led them back upstairs and across the dark Courtyard to the Hall of Attainment, and across the great round floor of the Hall to his room. He kept it very neat and all of his materials together on the shelf by the closet cupboard. He opened the cupboard and shamefacedly set out all the pairs of boots, one by one.

  


“If it wasn't to sell, why'd you want ten pairs of boots, boy?” Berti asked, not unkindly.

  


“In case my feet get cold,” Menali said.

  


The Khajiit looked at him, ears at half-mast, but he was manifestly not joking, his long bony face very serious and concerned.

  


“Did you steal anything else?” J'zon asked.

  


“No, why would I?” Menali asked, quite sincerely. “I saved up for socks and gloves from my little jobs in the town. See, I bought these.” He held up one slender hand, presently clad in a gray woolen glove, and pointed to it with the other hand. “I've got all my fingers,” he added, apropos of nothing. “But boots cost more, and I can only go out to work so often and still get back to the Laundry and still study.”

  


The Khajiit sighed, rubbing the top of his nose with one furry hand. Menali watched him worriedly.

  


“All right. You and Berti will put all of these back,” he said. “I will not expel you this time, Menali, but you are banned from classes for three days. Perhaps if you are very helpful to the Laundresses you can eventually earn a second pair of boots.”

  


“Thank you very much, Wizard,” Menali said, weak with relief.

  


“And I believe Urag gro-Shub has some binding and reshelving work with which he has requested assistance,” J'zon said. “You will spend your days away from class doing exactly as he says. Try not to antagonize Galvyn Indoril while you're there, since he's been given the same punishment.”

  


“Who?” Menali asked politely.

  


J'zon stared at him. “You haven't heard – Never mind. Just be there in the morning at eight.”

  


“Absolutely, yes, thank you,” Menali said. He looked at Berti, who was presently filling her arms with boots. “I really am sorry.”

  


“Well, you can start by helping me carry these back,” she said. She didn't look angry any more, at least. So that was something.

  


Next morning after breakfast he went to the Arcanaeum. Urag was there behind his desk in his practical tan robes, tusks almost tall enough to reach his nose if they hadn't been projected somewhat forward. He was a lighter yellow-brown Orc with a thick white beard. A Dunmer was already there, robed in black, with a tiny black goatee that made him look sort of evil. He had a mixed aura: some flavor of shifting shadows, some of the ozone tang of lightning and the faint bitter tang of smoke. He was a bit shorter than Menali, but then, most Dunmer were. Menali thought his skin looked sort of nice. It was dark blue-gray and very smooth. He seemed very unhappy, however, brows knitted, and his hair was pulled back in a very messy bun at the nape of his neck. The skin under his eyes was dark and puffy.

  


“Am I late, Sir?” Menali asked.

  


“No,” said Urag. His voice was a basso growl. “Young Master Indoril is always early. The two of you will begin with Shelf Nine. He'll fill you in on the filing system, Apprentice.”

  


Menali nodded and turned to follow the Dunmer as he pushed a cart piled with books back toward the book case. The shelves against the walls had glass-fronted cabinet doors over them, many small square panes, to protect from dust and insects.

  


“He must like you,” said Galvyn Indoril, when they were out of earshot. “He usually threatens me.” The Arcanaeum was in the round, like the Hall of the Elements below them, and like the Hall it had an outer walkway separated from the central floor by pillars. In the Arcanaeum, however, instead of windows there were shelves with glass fronts lining the walls. The dim mage-lights cast rich shadows over everything, more yellow and warm than the ones outside.

  


“I spend a lot of time in here,” Menali said. “I'm always very careful. You know he has all four volumes of Delarin's _Notes on Summoning_?”

  


“You don't say,” said Galvyn.

  


“Yes! And _Liminal Bridges_ , and _Darkest Darknes_ s, and – sorry,” he said, to the Dunmer's sidelong glare. Galvyn looked forward again. His eyes had red sclera and red irises, like every Dunmer Menali had so far seen. “Are you quite all right? If you're ill I could probably convince the Librarian to - ”

  


“Stop it,” snapped Galvyn. “And I don't need to hear your mockery. I've already endured enough of that from everyone else.”

  


Menali frowned as they rolled up to the shelves.

  


“I was not mocking you,” he said. “I've never seen or heard of you before last night, when the Wizard J'zon said I had to help you with the shelves.” He paused thoughtfully. “He seemed to think I should already know who you were, come to think of it.”

  


“Mf. Well, we're not here to talk about me. Here's how the filing system works...”

  


Menali listened carefully and set about the reshelving with Galvyn. The Dunmer continued to be short-tempered, but Menali was calm and persistent, and before long they had worked out a system wherein Menali would hand him a book and tell him where it went, and Galvyn would shelve it. Every time there might be a pause Galvyn would start talking, rather desperately, about books.

  


This was fine with Menali, for whom books were a topic of consistent interest. Galvyn was reasonably knowledgeable and did not yell at him, rendering him a perfect conversation partner from Menali's admittedly very limited experience. They had a spirited debate on the topic of the emotional range of daedra, in fact.

  


“Come now,” Galvyn said, waving a hand as he accepted a book with the other. “With the Kyn the clan-bond is obviously for military organization, nothing more. They don't _feel_ the way we do. No need for contact, no, no affection, no friendship or love.”

  


“We feel shame, and fear it. We feel loss, and fear it,” Menali quoted. “This goes on the bottom shelf with the advanced Herbalism series. How can they feel loss and shame both and have those occasioned only by defeat in battle? Shame only requires a cause; loss requires an object.”

  


“All right, granted, but that object need not be a living creature. Perhaps they grieve the loss of territory or the loss of strength in their army,” Galvyn said.

  


“Mm. Well, I never got a chance to,” Menali realized he was about to admit something he probably should not. “That is, I suppose they are cunning enough creatures to feign something like that in order to deceive a conjurer.”

  


Galvyn glanced at him, one eyebrow raised, but allowed him to skim over it.

  


“That's always the difficulty with daedra. You can't trust their accounts of themselves, not even the ones who seem the most forthright.”

  


“Probably you can trust what a Golden Saint says. They're too arrogant to lie, right?” Menali said.

  


“Now on that point I lack the information to argue,” Galvyn grunted. “I'm no conjurer, and you manifestly are. This goes on the upper shelf, doesn't it?”

  


Menali enjoyed himself immensely, though it seemed to him that Galvyn grew quieter throughout the day. When Urag finally came to tell them they could stop at the dinner hour, on their fourth cart full of books, he left with hardly a word. Menali did not see him in the dining hall. He felt a little disappointed.

  


Next day he ate breakfast quickly and hurried to the Arcanaeum. Once again, Galvyn Indoril was already there. That day he was less inclined to talk, to Menali's disappointment, and his eyes were redder and his face was paler. Menali watched him surreptitiously as they switched off shelving and handing. He was clumsy. Once he almost dropped a slim volume on advanced levitation that was nearly priceless, probably the only copy in Skyrim. He caught it hurriedly, but Menali watched him with a frown.

  


“Are you all right?”

  


“I'm fine,” snapped Galvyn, though his words were slightly fuzzy and run-together. “Hurry up, Urag said we have to get through four carts before we can leave.”

  


“All right, all right,” Menali said soothingly, and they went back to work. Menali kept a closer eye on Galvyn thereafter. He might be rich enough to pay for damage to a valuable book, but Menali was not. So he noticed when Galvyn first shelved a book in the wrong place, two spaces over from where it belonged.

  


“That's not right,” he said.

  


Galvyn's response was garbled and incomprehensible, and more to the point Menali was fairly sure it was in Dunmeris.

  


“I don't understand,” he started to say, but Galvyn was crumpling, falling away from him. Menali grabbed him around the waist almost without thinking, then stood staring stupidly down at the dead weight for a moment before he lowered the Dunmer carefully to the floor and rolled him onto his back. “Galvyn? Galvyn!”

  


The Dunmer's eyes were shut, but Menali's frantic groping at his throat found a thready heartbeat. He heard heavy footsteps approaching; his high-pitched near-panic had attracted Urag's attention. The Orc was in time to see Menali apply his weak healing spell, the basic one that all students were required to master. It had no visible effect.

  


“What happened?” The librarian sank to one knee beside them, reaching out to lay a hand on the Dunmer's chest. His calm tone calmed Menali slightly as well.

  


“We were working, and he said something I didn't understand, and he fell,” Menali said.

  


“Did he hit his head on the floor?” Urag asked.

  


“No, Sir, I caught him,” Menali said. “What's wrong? Is he sick? He didn't look quite well but he didn't want to talk about it.”

  


Urag took Galvyn's chin in his gnarled claw of a hand and turned it this way and that, looking at his face, then grunted.

  


“Your healing would have made at least some difference, even if he had a disease it could not fully cure. I think the problem here is that he probably has not slept since he challenged Dal gro-Galad.”

  


“Dal – oh. Oh dear,” Menali said. He remembered Dal from the Laundry. Their auras were not dissimilar in power, but it was hard to imagine that could've gone well when an Orc that size could easily flatten Galvyn with a hard swat _._ “Why would he do that?”

  


“You really haven't been paying attention, boy,” Urag said, half-amused. He let go of Galvyn's chin, producing an indistinct mutter from the Dunmer. “He'd been harassing Inès Morin, making her think he wanted to molest her, and when they confronted him in front of J'zon he slapped Dal with a glove. Apparently he's partly color blind. He thought he was dying when in fact his stamina was drained, and he babbled out that he was sorry and he'd only meant to keep everyone from finding out he was a lover of men. Except he said sword-swallower, which I gather the spectators found amusing.”

  


Menali frowned. “Why should he care if anyone knew that?”

  


“He wasn't paying much attention, either,” Uruk said. He laid a hand on Galvyn's shoulder. Menali felt power transfer from one to the other before he saw the faint green glow. “It's more of a problem where he's from.”

  


Galvyn's eyes fluttered – the lashes were long and dark – and then he was looking up at both of them. At first he looked confused, uncertain, and Menali thought his face seemed younger than he had previously thought, but then it aligned into the familiar scowl.

  


“Why am I on the floor – Sir?” he added quickly.

  


“Because you're a fool. I've given you a little stamina. Apprentice Menali will walk you back and make sure you go to bed. You're not to come back today. In fact, if I hear of you trying to do anything at all besides what I just said your punishment will be severe, am I understood?”

  


“Yes, Librarian,” Galvyn muttered, sitting up slowly. He waved away Menali's offered hand as he climbed carefully to his feet.

  


“I think he might not have eaten either,” Menali said, rising as Galvyn did. “I haven't seen him in the dining hall.”

  


Urag grunted again as he stood up. “I'll write you a ticket so you can bring him food. You may substitute this for the last hours of your assigned punishment, if you're willing to do it.”

  


“Yes,” Menali said. “I don't want him to fall again. He's very clever, you know.”

  


“Couldn't prove it by me. Come.”

  


He wrote the ticket, and Menali went with Galvyn down the stairs and out into the cold courtyard with its vast hooded statue of Shalidor, the old mage's arms outstretched and his head and shoulders mantled with snow. Menali watched the Dunmer sidelong as they went, trying to keep the concerned frown off his face. It was not hard for him to believe that the thing Urag had described would be annihilating for someone as obviously proud as Galvyn. It wasn't even completely impossible to imagine the Dunmer doing something so stupid out of a misguided attempt to protect that same pride.

  


Now that they were together and outside he understood why Galvyn did not want to go to the dining hall. Other students greeted him with smiles, trying to suppress laughter, or occasionally with pitying looks. Someone from behind them called out,

  


“Under sun and sky, Sword-Swallower!”

  


Galvyn bared his teeth, his complexion going nearly black with fury, but he kept walking. As they went his shoulders gradually stooped and he grew pale again, brow knit. By the time they made it into the Hall of Attainment with its great round tile floor, he was starting to stumble, struggling to stay upright. Menali did not offer him an arm. He knew it would not be accepted.

  


Galvyn's room was on the ground floor, about halfway around the circumference of the hall from the door and five doors down from Menali's. The Altmer watched him unlock it, then followed him patiently inside. Galvyn went to slump down onto the bed, resting his head in his hands. The room looked like most mages' rooms: clothes cupboard, shelf, worn work table, dresser with steel basin and pitcher for water. But there was a nice thick rug covering much of the cold tile floor, brown and gray with a fringe around the outside, and there was a thick fur blanket folded on the end of the bed.

  


“You're still here,” Galvyn said after a few moments had passed.

  


“I could help you get your boots off,” Menali said. “But you should leave the socks on. Sometimes it's easier to sleep if you keep your feet warm.”

  


“You can go. I don't want dinner,” Galvyn said.

  


“That's unfortunate, because if you don't let me back in when I come back – well, I only know the one Alteration spell. So I will get one of the Alterationists to unlock the door,” Menali said. Galvyn rolled his eyes.

  


“Please. You're less of a reject than I am, Menali, but you didn't even know what I'd done. You don't know a single person here other than Urag, do you?”

  


“Not well,” Menali admitted. “I'm not a very social mer. Why do you wear black?”

  


“It's easier. I'm not completely color-blind, but I can't tell the difference between blue and orange, or between green and red,” said Galvyn. “And you don't have to tell me it's because of inbreeding. Believe me, I know.”

  


“An Altmer isn't exactly in a position to mock there,” Menali said.

  


“What are you being punished for?” asked Galvyn. His voice was starting to sound blurry again.

  


“I stole ten pairs of boots from the clothes storage,” Menali said.

  


“How did you think you were going to fence that many?” Galvyn asked.

  


“I was going to keep them,” Menali said. “I'll come back with food. You have to let me in, Galvyn. Promise.”

  


“I promise,” sighed the Dunmer. Menali went out and shut the door. He heard it lock behind him.

  


In twenty minutes he was back, carrying a small sack and a tray with a cheesecloth laid over it. He kicked the door gently.

  


“Galvyn, it's Menali.”

  


There was a shuffling sound from inside. Galvyn opened the door looking much as he had before and without any suggestion that he had slept while Menali was gone.

  


“Here's dinner,” Menali said. “There's bread and soup with chunks of meat in it that might be chicken and some kind of winter cabbage, maybe kale? And custard. And apples.” As he talked he went over to set the tray on the table and remove the cheesecloth cover over the two bowls, two small chunks of thick-crusted bread, and two small plates of peppered and lightly steamed green stuff. There was a small custard each on separate plates, molded into fat cylindrical shapes with little rounded protrusions around the top. The sack of apples he set behind the tray for later.

  


“I'm not hungry,” Galvyn said.

  


“Yes, it gets like that. You don't eat for a little while. Then you get used to it hurting, and then you just feel nasty and you don't want food any more,” Menali said. “But you have to eat. Try some soup first. It's easier on the stomach.”

  


“How do you know that?” Galvyn asked. He came over to the work table to poke unenthusiastically at the cabbage with a blue-gray finger, then took up a bowl of soup in both hands and sipped it carefully. Menali watched to make sure his shaky hands could hold it before he started on his own soup, picking it up likewise because it felt less awkward.

  


“It was a long walk from the border with High Rock,” he said. “Thank Magnus for snowberries.”

  


“You walked from High Rock,” Galvyn repeated slowly. “How'd you get _there?_ ”

  


“I was born there,” Menali said. “My parents were not fully in agreement with some Thalmor policies.”

  


“So they fled the Summerset Isles,” Galvyn said.

  


“Yes,” Menali said. “But they weren't important people before that, either. My father just said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

  


“You're a well-spoken enough mer,” Galvyn said.

  


“I like to read,” Menali said. Galvyn smiled, and Menali was surprised by how genuine the expression seemed. He was pleased to see the Dunmer had drunk most of his soup. He still looked exhausted, but his speech was clearer.

  


They ate together. Galvyn said little, but he seemed less – knotted up, was the best phrase Menali could come up with in his own mind. Afterward Menali collected things back onto the tray and laid the cloth carefully back over it.

  


“Are you ready to sleep?” he asked.

  


“I don't know,” Galvyn said. “Maybe I just needed to eat something.”

  


Menali gave him a reproachful look. “If you collapse during class tomorrow you could break your head. There are no soft floors here.”

  


“I won't,” Galvyn snapped at him, then paused, mouth open. He shut it, exhaling through his nostrils. Menali waited patiently. “All right, your point is well taken. But – how? I lie down every night and I can't. That day replays itself in my mind over and over without cease.”

  


“You can't try really hard to think about something else?” Menali asked. Galvyn shot him a look. “All right, all right. What about meditation? I'm not sure what, er, religion you are.”

  


“My family venerate the Ancestors and the Reclamations through the New Temple,” Galvyn said. “Meditation is still allowed, even encouraged, but I can't seem to clear my head.”

  


Menali hesitated for a moment, hand on the table. Galvyn, leaning on it with both hands, looked up at him sidelong.

  


“Speak, Altmer. I'm not going to yell at you. Again,” he corrected himself irritably.

  


“After I take the dishes back, I'd like to stay and talk a little longer,” Menali said. “If you're not sleeping anyway. I understand if you don't want anyone to see a man in your room because of your family or so on. Urag told me -”

  


“Yes, I heard some of the end of that,” Galvyn said.

  


“And of course you don't want to be seen talking to a commoner.”

  


“Don't be stupid,” Galvyn said, but his tone was gentle. “If anything, you have more to lose by being seen with me.”

  


“People will forget this pretty quickly, you know,” Menali said, gathering up the tray. “In two weeks it'll be old news. Was that a yes?”

  


“Yes,” Galvyn said. He was still leaning on the table as Menali slipped out.

  


He returned to find Galvyn sitting on the edge of the bed staring at his own boots. They were nice boots, the leather dyed black, with white vines embroidered around the tops. The visible texture of them was something anyone could enjoy without the ability to see certain colors, it occurred to Menali. That was probably why he'd chosen the rug with its strongly woven pattern as well.

  


“Did you mean what you said earlier to Urag?” Galvyn asked, without looking up. Menali closed the door and then locked it, then came to sit in the chair by the worktable, a polite distance away. He leaned an elbow on the scarred surface as he regarded the Dunmer.

  


“What did I say?” Menali asked.

  


“You said I was very clever.”

  


“Oh, that. I did mean it,” Menali said. “And you're not so very arrogant, really. You admitted you didn't know that much about conjuration.”

  


“Oh, thank you for that,” Galvyn said dryly. Menali smiled at him happily.

  


“I think you're too worried about how other people see you. Magic is the most important thing here.”

  


Galvyn sighed, running his hands over his now very disheveled mess of black hair. He fumbled at the bun at the back of his head, then finally pulled free a pointed stick made of black glass and tossed it onto the table. Menali watched his hair tumble down his back.

  


“I was supposed to learn Restoration,” Galvyn said. “My family are all high-ranking priests. I've always been so much better at the school of Illusion. And I am the eldest of my father's sons, and I am supposed to marry and provide the family an heir so that the line of Indoril can continue.”

  


“Are you their only son?” Menali asked.

  


“No. I have four brothers and two sisters.”

  


“I don't see why it has to be you, then,” Menali said.

  


Galvyn made a small, helpless gesture, lifting one hand and letting it flop again.

  


“I could abdicate that responsibility, let it pass to Naeral. But then what would I do? Father would cut me off. I would have no means of support other than whatever I can earn by magic. When you're used to having wealth it is very hard to give it up.”

  


“Hard enough to make it worth having to marry a woman when you can't love a woman?” Menali asked.

  


“I don't know. I don't _know.”_ Galvyn sank his head into his hands again. Menali reached out, then pulled his hand back slowly, unsure if touch would be unwelcome. He saw Galvyn turn a crimson eye on him through the mess of hair. “Why do you care about all of this?”

  


“I don't meet many people that will talk to me,” Menali said. “Even less that I want to.”

  


“You're a handsome enough fellow. I should think women would be introducing themselves to you the day long,” Galvyn said acidly.

  


“I'm not especially,” Menali said. “And I mostly stay out of everyone's way now, as much as I can. Urag lets me read as long as I treat the books well. And, well, I don't want to be naked in front of anyone.”

  


“Why?” Galvyn asked.

  


“I have marks,” Menali said.

  


“They can't be that bad. Let's see them,” Galvyn demanded, sitting up straight.

  


Menali shrugged and pulled off one boot and then the sock, reluctantly, and flexed the four toes of his left foot into the rug. Then he stood and turned his back to Galvyn so that he could peel down his two layers of robe and pull up his linen undershirt to show his back. He heard silence behind him, and then a shuffling footstep. He was startled to feel a warm fingertip tracing a curlicue along his shoulderblade.

  


“I don't see what's so bad about that,” said Galvyn's voice. “All right, don't get cold, Menali. What are they from?”

  


“Frostbite,” Menali said, reassembling his garments. He felt hot and confused in a way that was unfamiliar to him as he thought of Galvyn standing back there gazing at his scars, one fingertip gently traveling the length of a curve.

  


“Frostbite drew scars on your back?” Galvyn said, raising an eyebrow.

  


“No, that was some women in dark robes. I hid in a cave to get out of a snowstorm and they found me sleeping. I woke up tied up and bent over a big rock with this thing like an old woman with a bird's claws cackling in my ear. The others paralyzed me. She gouged my back with her claws for what seemed like forever. I -” he stopped, reluctant to entirely discuss the next part of the story. “I succeeded in running away, and I kept on so far without stopping that I got frostbite and a bad fever and a hole in my left shoe. It was too late for that toe by the time I got here.”

  


“Witches and a hagraven,” Galvyn said.

  


“Probably,” Menali said. “The cave was full of antlers and those glowing things from Alchemy class that come from dead spriggans – taproots. And a goat head on a stake.” He sat back down to pull his sock back on, then after a moment's thought nudged his other boot off. Galvyn sat down and, without discussing it, began to remove his own boots. Menali was mildly hopeful that he might actually be thinking about going to sleep, but instead he said,

  


“Menali, what do you think about when you're alone?”

  


“Books I've read. Books I want to read. Things I haven't summoned yet and how I could learn to summon them,” Menali said. “Food. How to get more boots and socks. Maybe more gloves.”

  


“No, no.” Galvyn waved an impatient hand. “I mean – when you're alone in the bath or the privy, say.”

  


“Same answer.”

  


“You've never woken up in the morning and - ?” Galvyn made a vaguely tent-like gesture around his crotch area as he sat back down.

  


“Oh. Once in a great while,” Menali said. “Urag has this book called _The Gardens of Manat-Sal._ It has detailed illustrations -”

  


“I've read it,” Galvyn said. “Just not Urag's copy.”

  


“Oh, good,” Menali said cheerfully. “Admittedly I skimmed the section of 9 that has the sloads in it, and I'm not entirely comfortable with the bits that involve Pahmer Khajiit.”

  


“You don't feel particularly drawn to, say, primarily Chapter 2?” Galvyn asked.

  


“What, the one that's only women with men? No, not really. It's all really the same thing in the end,” Menali said. “Find the right thing and rub it or lick it or insert something into a greased something else. It's all variations on a theme, so to speak. I mean it doesn't really matter, does it? I'm not likely ever to try any of it. I have nothing to offer another person and if I did,” he shrugged. “I am broken.” His tone was matter-of-fact.

  


“I don't think you are,” Galvyn said. “You're not quite like other people, but that's not necessarily bad.”

  


“Do you feel tired enough to sleep yet?” Menali asked.

  


Galvyn looked at him silently for a moment. Menali looked back, his face calm and friendly and not particularly revealing.

  


“I suppose so,” the Dunmer said after a while.

  


Menali felt a little bad that he'd been testing. Galvyn's audible disappointment raised a tiny flame of hope.

  


“I could stay,” Menali said. “And I could -” Even with a little encouragement he was aware of his face darkening as he tried to get the words out. “I could hold you. While you sleep. So you'll be warm. I know I can't sleep if I get cold. Especially my feet but if you leave your socks on then maybe your feet won't be -”

  


“Yes! Yes, stop talking,” Galvyn said, but he was smiling a little bit again.

  


Menali grinned back at him. Miraculously, he still had all his teeth. He got up and took his boots to carefully set by the wardrobe. He was strongly aware of Galvyn beside him opening the cupboard to hang up his robe, a bony shoulder brushing his arm. His linen shirt and trousers were finer than Menali's, but not so much that he felt humiliated for Galvyn to see his student-issued underclothing. Menali had a lot more long and knobbly leg sticking out below his hems, a few more little scratch scars that he had by now forgotten marking his calves and shins. He waited for Galvyn to pull back the covers and slide into bed. The Dunmer groaned as he turned over onto his side, sinking into the mattress.

  


“Oh, gods, that's good.”

  


“Of course it is,” Menali said. He went to carefully blow out the fat candle on top of the shelf. Then he went to climb in beside Galvyn. He pulled the covers over them both and scooted in close, curling his arms around the Dunmer so that they lay face to face.

  


“Now what?” Galvyn asked. His beard looked very pettable up close, Menali thought. Not evil at all.

  


“Go to sleep?” Menali said.

  


“You actually did mean sleeping?” Galvyn said.

  


“I did. I don't have anything slippery with me and I don't really want to have to go wash again – oh, but you probably would find it easier to sleep, wouldn't you? Hang on. Actually don't hang on, roll on your back.”

  


“Wait, what are you doing?” Galvyn asked. Menali was burrowing downward under the covers, muttering something in Aldmeris as he groped around. He traced the muscle in Galvyn's thigh upward until he found a bulge.

  


“If you want me to suck on you, you're going to have to lift your hips so I can pull your pants down,” Menali said. His voice was muffled slightly by the coverlet. It was very warm under there, and that pleased him. He was not particularly aroused, but he seldom was. “If I swallow there won't be a mess.”

  


There was a thoughtful silence. Then Galvyn flexed his pelvis, lifting his hips slightly from the bed as Menali tugged his trousers down around his hips.

  


“Let's see, navel, belly, yep, there it is. Omph.”

  


“Are you sure you want to merrrrr,” Galvyn's question trailed off in a slightly silly-sounding moan as Menali's hot, wet mouth engulfed the end of his cock. The Altmer was gratified to feel it get hard very quickly. He couldn't see it under the covers, but it felt middle-sized, a very reasonable fit, maybe curving slightly to the right. The foreskin fit loose around the end, and Menali was glad to learn that Galvyn kept himself very clean as he slid it back with his fingers to allow him to mouth the end of the glans. Under his fingers the Dunmer's skin was velvety and warm, smooth. A few Dunmer could grow beards, but not many had body hair.

  


“Yeff,” Menali said, the consonant ruined somewhat by having a cock in his mouth. He heard Galvyn moan again at the slight vibration this produced. Struck with an idea, Menali closed one hand tight around Galvyn's shaft and began to work it up and down, thumb on the ridge on the underside as he pushed his head forward and back to run the tip along the roof of his mouth.

  


“Yrrrrf. Yrrrrf.” Menali repeated the syllable in a humming drone. He didn't want to have to spend awfully long at it because in his current position, lying on one elbow with his chest resting on Galvyn's left thigh, his neck would get sore.

  


“Are you seriously humming – oh -” Galvyn's second attempt at a question did not end any more articulately than the first. “Gods, that isn't even – fair - ”

  


“Yrrrrrf hr hr hr.” Menali almost choked, trying to keep humming as he laughed. He couldn't help himself. Galvyn sounded so indignant. He felt Galvyn's cock jump in his mouth and heard the Dunmer gasping, and thus warned he shoved his mouth forward until the tip was almost in his throat. When Galvyn's hips lifted again with the beginning of his orgasm, Menali was ready, holding his breath. It was a little hard not to gag as hot seed shot into his throat, but he swallowed it as fast as he could. He lessened the pressure gradually as he felt the spurts decrease, lapping the end of the glans clean. As the erection started to gently subside he slid the foreskin carefully back over the tip.

  


It was a small lazy wrestling match getting Galvyn's trousers back on. Menali's cock had never been more than slightly plump, and as he concentrated on this it subsided. It was not so easy for him to feel aroused at all, under any circumstances. Even this was a pleasant surprise.

  


Then he crept back up to stick his head out of the covers, taking a deep breath of the fresher air.

  


“See, isn't that better?” he said brightly.

  


It was mostly dark, but in the dim light that came in under the door Galvyn's expression was all that he had hoped for, eyes half-lidded as he turned his head to look at Menali with his purple-black lips slightly parted. The Dunmer was still breathing hard, visibly speechless.

  


“Next time I want to be able to see your face,” Menali said. He gently pushed Galvyn's hand away from his waistband, laughing. “No, I'm fine. You are tired. Go to sleep.” He lay back down on his side, pressing himself close to Galvyn so that he could lay his arm over the Dunmer's chest, forehead against his temple. “I don't know what's considered appropriate where you're from,” he whispered in Galvyn's ear. “May I rub you a little?”

  


It took a moment for Galvyn to drag together enough thoughts to form words.

  


“I could hardly refuse you anything you wish,” Galvyn slurred. Menali could feel the tension easing from his body as he held him. Menali gently massaged Galvyn's belly, to enjoy the sensation of the muscles slackening. It was very flat; he'd been eating less than he needed for a while.

  


Lying next to a warm body was like having his own personal fireplace. It was lovely. And holding a person was something special. Menali hadn't been able to do it many times in his life. He was not sure if Galvyn would really enjoy it or just tolerate it, or he would have stripped off his shirt so that he could press his naked upper body against Galvyn's just to feel that feeling. He was still wary of that moment of pain when a hand would run over his scars and recoil.

  


Even without that much naked skin, Menali would have sucked off a half-dozen cocks, tongued a half-dozen clits for the privilege of doing what he was doing now. To have made someone feel that good, to be allowed to hold them close afterward and feel them unwinding sinew by sinew as they gradually drifted off into sleep, that was worth the highest price. He pressed his face against Galvyn's neck greedily to feel his heartbeat grow sluggish, to hear his breathing become slow and even and relaxed.

  


He never let anyone touch him intimately, because those little touches made him want this. And to want this was to make himself the slave of whoever promised it to him, male or female. He was always afraid they would see the ways in which he was permanently incomplete and never want him to do it again.

  


Galvyn was fast asleep now. Menali lifted his head a little to look at his face, limned by the thin glow from under the door to the Hall. His unbound hair formed a black halo around the sharp angles of cheekbone and jaw. The taut lines around Galvyn's mouth and eyes were smoothed out at last, revealing a younger Dunmer than Menali had first met. That expression of complete surrendered relaxation stirred a number of things inside him that were not entirely related to the very slight warmth between his legs. That would quickly pass. The rest would linger. Menali laid his head down on the small pillow beside Galvyn's, draping his arm over the Dunmer's stomach so that he could curl his fingers under his other side for optimal warmth. He wanted to stay awake, to enjoy the moment longer, but sleep crept up and ambushed him.

  


The next thing he knew he was lying on his back with a warm heavy weight on top of him. Menali lay quiet for a moment as his mind caught up to events, and gradually he realized he was underneath Galvyn, who was still asleep and breathing softly past his right ear. His head was curled down against Menali's cheek, supported by the pillow, and Menali could feel him breathing, chest against his chest, belly against his belly. His arms were around Menali's shoulders, hands pushed in under them, and his feet trailed between Menali's feet. The warmth of his pelvis pressed against Menali's was nice, too, his thighs providing enough support not to uncomfortably smush, but there was enough weight that he could feel the shape of hipbones and mons firmly framing the softer parts that lay against Menali's. He did not allow himself to concentrate on that. He wasn't sure what Galvyn would think when he woke up. It was best not to get more invested than he had already.

  


Still... He was pleased that Galvyn had at some point automatically crept on top and clung. There would never be too much touch. He reached up to stroke the back of Galvyn's hair very gently, then the back of his neck, kneading slowly.

  


Galvyn grunted and sighed, shifting position slightly.

  


“It's not Sundas until tomorrow, Galvyn,” Menali told him softly. “We have to go to class.”

  


“Mnuh?” He felt Galvyn breathe deeply as he started to wake up, raising himself on his elbows as they rested on the mattress to either side of Menali. His hair formed a broad halo around his head as he squinted down at the Altmer. “How'd I get here?”

  


“Maybe you were cold. You make a nice blanket,” Menali said. He gave the back of his neck one last little squeeze and let go. “But I want to at least show up to Elementary Restoration. Up up.”

  


“Right. Class.” Galvyn climbed gingerly off him, pushing the covers away, and climbed to his feet. “Menali, can I – I just fell asleep last night. I'm sorry.”

  


“It's not easy for me to get hard, Galvyn,” Menali said. “And after that it takes some time if I'm ever to finish. As I said, I'm broken.” He got up, stretching, and went to get his clothes from the cupboard. Pausing to hang things up was not romantic, but it did mean you had less rumpled things to wear subsequently.

  


“From frostbite?” Galvyn asked.

  


“No. Always,” Menali said.

  


“I'd like to try,” Galvyn said gruffly. They paused at the cupboard, looking into one another's faces. Menali looked over Galvyn's carefully, and there he found no hesitancy or lie. He smiled.

  


“Tonight,” he said. “Shall I come here again?” He did not say that his room would not have a nice rug or sheets that were as fine, but the silent fact hung between them.

  


“Yes, if you like,” Galvyn said. “We could – we could dine together in the hall, if you want. I can only look better by association with someone nobody hates. What you have to lose only you can determine.”

  


“I would like for us to eat together, too,” Menali said.

  


“Good,” Galvyn said abruptly. He didn't sound happy, but looking at the darkening color of his face as he dressed, Menali thought he might just be nervous. If he came from a place where he had to hide, he probably had never experienced something like this. They parted company with few further words.

  


Menali ambled unobtrusively through his day, as he usually did. As usual, he spent the two hours of Conjuration in the library, reading. Either no one had noticed he never showed up except for test days, or the instructors didn't care as long as he did well. Test days tended to be very brief for Menali in that particular subject.

  


Come the dinner hour he went to line up with everybody else in the Kitchen and Dining Hall connected to the Hall of Elements by a short hallway. Generally there would be a line back up the passage, so the doors would have to be held open person by person as the line moved up. He didn't really listen to the chitchat around him other than to vaguely respond to a greeting from someone (afterward he wasn't sure who; it might have been the Argonian from the Laundry).

  


Galvyn must have been there ahead of him. He was already at a table back in the corner. Menali took his bowl of stew back there, weaving his way among the mix of big and small tables (probably donated from the town or given in exchange for services as much as bought; the College had been less wealthy in the ten years or so preceding the rise of the present Arch-Mage In Absentia, the Dragonborn Ivir Salvorsson). Galvyn's table was small and round and badly splintered and scarred, probably the property of some smith or other small artisan before it had made its way here. The Dunmer sat with his back very straight, staring with cold hostility at his plate. His hair was perfect again, braided very neatly down his back.

  


“Hello,” Menali said, settling in his chair. “Have you changed your mind?”

  


“What? No!” Galvyn looked up abruptly, focusing on him with somewhat the close attention of an eagle that has just spotted a rabbit. “I wasn't sure if you were coming, that's all.”

  


“I was a little late and got stuck far back in line,” Menali said. “Eat your stew, it'll get cold.”

  


“I don't really care for the taste of horker, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose,” grumbled Galvyn. He did start eating. Menali patted him companionably on the back.

  


“I've been thinking,” Galvyn said after a while.

  


“About what?” asked Menali.

  


“About how to support myself without my family,” Galvyn said. “The alchemists and enchanters have it all over the rest of us when it comes to that, but I'm not particularly good at either.”

  


“Well, you can always just try adventuring while you practice,” Menali said. “Magicka exposure makes you live longer. The more time you spend, the more time you get. It's true about Divayth Fyr, isn't it?”

  


“Oh, probably.” Galvyn waved a hand. “That is, if he's still alive now. He probably could've found a way to protect Tel Fyr from the volcano if he really wished. After 4000 years he might be set in his ways. Or he might have whisked it all away to some remote place where no one's found him yet. Imagine a Telvanni tower sprouting unnoticed in some bit of Black Marsh.”

  


He looked at Menali, head on one side. The braid slid over his shoulder.

  


“What about you?”

  


Menali shrugged. “Maybe I can convince them to take me on as a Conjuration instructor in a hundred years or so. Until then, if I keep my head down I should be just fine right here.”

  


“That's not asking much out of life,” Galvyn said doubtfully.

  


“I like studying,” Menali said. “It would be nice to have a place to practice without drawing much attention. I've thought about maybe trying to dig out a place down the Midden for that. It's cold, but not as cold as it is outside, and there's enough airflow that you can build a fire. There are even old chimneys, though gods only know where they go.”

  


“It's not exactly safe to sleep in the Midden, from what I hear,” Galvyn said.

  


“It will be when I've sealed off some forgotten back room with a solid door,” Menali said. “Part of the Midden was once College and they just kept building upward. I found a book with maps in the Library and copied it down very carefully. There are even cell doors that still have locks.”

  


“Do they have keys, though?” Galvyn asked.

  


“My Alteration is good enough to substitute for that at a simple level. Skeevers can't pick a door lock. I've only got to nail boards over the gaps between bars to make the simplest sort of room, and then I'll have a place to venture out from and look for a better one.” Menali gestured with his spoon as he spoke, his enthusiasm growing as he described his plans.

  


“Your one Alteration spell is Unlock?”

  


“Well... All right, I know three.”

  


“But you haven't tried to do all this yet,” Galvyn said cautiously.

  


“No, I haven't got boards or a hammer and nails yet,” Menali said, smiling lopsidedly. “I got distracted by, well, boots and things. And there are other things I need to collect up first. A duvet or something to lie on, a broom and mop and bucket and soap, some food that can travel. I can find tables and dressers down there and clean them up. I did sneak down once and there was a lot of old furniture about as I went further down. I might even be lucky enough to find a bedstead that's still sound.”

  


“I suppose if I'm to support myself adventuring I might as well try the Midden first,” Galvyn said. “Kill some skeevers, trap some souls for enchanting practice. Then I can work my way gradually out away from the town.”

  


“Come tomorrow,” Menali said promptly. “We'll have a poke around and I'll show you what I've found so far.”

  


“Well, let's see how we feel after tonight,” Galvyn said, looking slyly sideways at him. People at adjoining tables might reasonably suppose he was suggesting Menali sell his soul to Mehrunes Dagon, he looked that cleverly malevolent.

  


“Oh, yes, of course,” Menali said vaguely. He was starting to regret telling Galvyn yes. If it didn't work out the Dunmer would be angry and disappointed and might not want to see him again.

  


“Well, I'm finished,” Galvyn said. “Shall we head that way?”

  


“I'd like a bath first,” Menali said.

  


“Good idea. I'll meet you at my room after we've both had a chance to wash, then,” Galvyn said.

  


Menali went back to his room first, to change out of his day layers and into the single layer of worn robe he usually wore to the bath house. He'd scavenged it from a trash heap in Winterhold and carefully washed and mended it. It was made of worn white wool and ended above his anklebones. The bath house was divided into a male and a female half, the individual stalls holding half-barrel tubs beneath their spigots. An old boiler hissed and crackled in the middle of the building, in its own closet between the two halves, where a servant stoked it all afternoon and most of the evening. After that you'd have to wash cold.

  


While he stood in the bath Menali tried stroking his own cock, looking down at it impatiently. He knew what he liked, just how much pressure and how fast, and how to slide his own tight foreskin off and onto the golden-yellow shaft so that it didn't hurt or pull. It felt nice, but nothing really happened. As usual, it was taking its own time about it. He decided not to let the water get cold and gave up so that he would at least still be warm and not retracted from the cold when Galvyn saw him. It wasn't a big one as pricks went. Maybe six inches hard, closer to four and a half limp. For his shorter height, Galvyn's had been bigger.

  


Galvyn opened the door to his room holding a green glass vial. He wore a robe of what looked like thin black linen, making his skin look more blue by its contrast.

  


“What's that?” Menali asked, as Galvyn bolted the door.

  


“It is a very fine grade of snowberry-seed oil,” Galvyn said. “Since you thought it might take a while, I thought I'd make sure friction did not become an issue. How blunt are you willing that I be in terms of questions? You didn't really ask me anything before, but I'd like to make sure this is as good for you as I can.”

  


“I probably should have, though,” Menali said. “I don't mind anything you care to ask.”

  


“All right. Have you been with a man before, other than having your mouth on a cock?” Galvyn asked.

  


“Yes, sort of. When I roomed with a couple of others we'd use each other's thighs sometimes, or our mouths. I would finish on my own because it took so long, but that was nice.”

  


“But you've never had anything inside you?” Galvyn asked, popping the cork. It was tied to the vial with a small bit of black ribbon. He tipped a tiny drop of oil onto his fingers and began to rub it around between them. Menali watched him curiously.

  


“No,” he said.

  


“Then here is what I propose. You lie on the bed on your side, and I will start by rubbing you until we find something that feels good, and then go from there.”

  


“All right,” Menali said. He shrugged the robe partly off as he climbed onto the bed, lying down on his right side facing into the room. Galvyn scooted on after him, setting the oil on the floor carefully. He ran his hand along Menali's thigh, testing, then shrugged the Altmer's leg up onto his shoulder so that he could see all of it: privy member, balls, taint and the small round golden circle beyond it. The Altmer was hairless. Like Dunmer, a few of that species could grow facial hair, but body hair was very uncommon.

  


Menali could slightly see what Galvyn was doing if he rested his elbow on the bed and adjusted the position of his upper body. It wasn't uncomfortable, surprisingly. Having his leg draped over someone was a new experience. He was afraid Galvyn would be put off by his maimed left foot, but the Dunmer was paying that no attention at all. Galvyn was looking at his genitals with an expression of narrow-eyed resolve, as if facing an unusually difficult enchanting problem. Menali smothered a laugh.

  


“Do I amuse you?” Galvyn asked dryly. Menali felt a hand quest along the shaft of his flaccid cock, warm and tight. He shut his eyes, basking in the touch.

  


“You just look so serious,” he said. “It's only sexual congress, you know. You aren't opening a liminal bridge.”

  


“Yes, I suppose so,” Galvyn said. “But I'd like to get it right.”

  


“Mm. Well, that feels good.”

  


“What about this?” Galvyn gently cupped his balls with an oiled hand as the other one slid up the back of his scrotum along the seam to rub the short space between that and his anus. Menali opened his mouth, then let it hang open for a second as he registered an entirely new sensation.

  


“That's – that's unexpected,” he said.

  


“Really. Do you like it when I do this?” Galvyn pressed hard at that spot with his thumb. Menali inhaled sharply through his nostrils.

  


“Yes, very much,” said Menali. He was surprised to find his cock stirring slowly, plumping up just a little. Galvyn watched him slyly, sideways.

  


“You never looked at the drawings of a man rubbing another man's... liminal bridge?”

  


“Oh, you mean in Chapter Four?” Menali said. He felt the muscles in his arms and neck relaxing. As Galvyn continued to rub there was a feeling a bit like the ache after a long walk, but deep, very pleasurable. He wanted more. “Yes, but a lot of the things in that chapter looked a bit... Well, pointless to me. Uncomfortable.”

  


“Do you find this uncomfortable?”

  


“No,” Menali said. He laid his head on his arm, sighing deeply. Then he blinked slowly. “What is it you're doing now?”

  


Galvyn gently switched the hand that held Menali's testicles to rubbing his taint. An oiled finger of the other hand was creeping gently toward something Menali was almost sure could not possibly... Yes, there it was, a finger gently circling the puckered ring. He was surprised to find that this felt good also, sending a tingling feeling up his spine.

  


“Circling your golden star,” Galvyn said. “If you like that I shall presently put my finger inside it.”

  


“Yesss,” Menali said. He wasn't quite drooling. He wasn't quite hard, either. But someone was specifically trying to give him pleasure, and it was Galvyn, whom he already quite liked; and if he sensations he now felt were not exactly what he had previously interpreted as sexual, they were very pleasant.

  


He felt Galvyn's finger pressing toward the center, testing whether he was relaxed enough, and then the oiled length of it slid gently but firmly inside him. At first this was a little uncomfortable, as he had expected, and it was all he could do not to squirm; but it was obvious Galvyn was feeling about for something, and Menali was about to ask what it was when he became gradually aware of a warm feeling blossoming across his chest and face. He opened his eyes to look down in disbelief at his cock gradually becoming very, very hard. It tended to curve slightly down and away from him in an arc when it was erect.

  


“Ah, there it is,” Galvyn said. “How's that?”

  


“Extraordinary,” Menali slurred, shutting his eyes again. “Maybe I should've... read that chapter more closely...”

  


“Oh, just you wait.” Galvyn chuckled evilly as he introduced a second finger, stretching the ring slightly. There was that slight achy feeling again, and now there were two knuckles rubbing back and forth inside Menali. He gasped as he moved his hips slightly, unable to control the urge to press back toward that wonderful sensation. And now Galvyn's other hand was on his hard cock, and he could almost feel waves of sensation radiating from one set of nerves to the other. He wheezed inarticulately, face darkening as the toes of his left foot curled against Galvyn's back.

  


“I don't think it'll take that long at all,” Galvyn said smugly. “It's just that no one's ever touched you correctly.”

  


“I am hardly – hweh – in a position to disagree,” Menali said. “Oh, gods, don't stop doing that, Galvyn. Galvyn – Galvyn!”

  


He was wide-eyed, gasping, all composure completely lost. His rolling eyes showed him Galvyn's evil grin as the Dunmer increased his pace, left thumb on the frenulum as he pumped Menali's shaft, right fingers knuckling his prostate.

  


_Oh yes, that's what it was called. Funny how these things come back to one,_ Menali thought. That was his last articulate thought for at least a couple of minutes. He did not come often, but he well remembered the feeling of ecstatic sensitivity right before orgasm, and he felt it now, but it seemed to just go on and on. Having his cock touched was nice, but it was nothing to the feeling of pleasurable tingling warmth spreading through his entire lower body. He could feel it in his navel, in his thighs, almost up to his chest. There was a feeling of pressure, like the way that his body would stay bound up for a little after he came, but it, too, went on and on. The combination of sensations was overwhelming.

  


When he came it took him by surprise. It didn't even really seem to start in his genitals. It felt as though it started from deep in his pelvis and radiated, an explosive, overwhelming nova of uncontrollable pleasure. He shuddered, and the sound he made was truly embarrassing, a sort of high-pitched squeak, but he had no power to stop it. Seed shot from his cock in a fat unending stream instead of the pulses he was more accustomed to see. Galvyn dodged after it with a cloth Menali had not seen him pull out. He didn't even care that the Dunmer had let go of his cock. Every cell of his body felt alive, singing. Being touched at all, anywhere, almost seemed like pain. It was nearly a relief to feel Galvyn withdraw his fingers. He laid Menali's leg down as the Altmer melted, gasping, into the mattress.

  


When he thought he had regained the power of speech Menali panted,

  


“Well, I'll have to stay here again. I'm not sure I can walk.”

  


Galvyn, wiping his fingers on another cloth – where'd the first one gone, had he gotten up and put it in the hamper and Menali hadn't even noticed? Galvyn's proud smile warmed Menali yet further. There was a fat bulge in the front of his robe. The Altmer curled himself around to reach for it.

  


“Why, what have we here?” he said, following by a sound sort of like _nomph._

  


Galvyn didn't last long the second time, either, although in his defense he'd had significant provocation beforehand, as he put it afterward. They each went to relieve themselves and wash, wobbly and staggering, and came back to collapse into bed.

  


“I think that Argonian saw us,” Galvyn said. “Don't remember her name.”

  


“Who cares?” Menali said.

  


“Good point.” They lay naked and close together, side by side, Menali's arm draped over Galvyn's head so he could play with the Dunmer's now-loose hair with his fingertips. Galvyn's hands rested on his own stomach, but his thigh lay against Menali's.

  


“Gods, what a glow,” Menali said. “It's like being drunk. Better.”

  


“There's nothing like it,” Galvyn said. “Having your cock in isn't bad either, mind. Next time we ought to try that. I've got - ” he stopped, his complexion darkening. Meanli looked over at him.

  


“What have you got that can possibly be embarrassing now?” he asked mildly.

  


“Well – some people feel it's – I've got a thing made out of glass. For putting up you. I bet with it in, you could get hard enough to fuck me, if you wanted to try it.”

  


“I don't see why not,” Menali said. “We ought to try everything. I've clearly missed a great deal by declining to experiment up to this point.”

  


“That's the spirit,” Galvyn said. His words were starting to slur slightly.

  


“I would like to hold you,” Menali said.

  


“Well, it's not very manly, but on the other hand, you're not a Dunmer. You can't be expected to conduct a relationship with another man in a Dunmer fashion,” Galvyn said seriously. Menali, turning lazily to watch his face, saw one corner of his lips quiver.

  


“And what do two Dunmer men do? Pull each other off as they solemnly recite passages from -”

  


“No, stop,” Galvyn snorted. “I don't want to laugh at sacrilege. Some daedra prince might notice.”

  


“Mm.” Menali turned onto his side to curl his arms around Galvyn, burrowing one under him so that he could completely encircle his body. Galvyn draped an arm over his waist in return, lowering his head against Menali's chest. Each breath touched Menali's skin with a feeling like small fluttering wings.

  


“I shall try to be more respectful,” murmured Menali. “You can always recite from _Liminal Bridges_ instead, you know. I admit it'll be very hard to preserve my composure - ”

  


“Shut up,” Galvyn grunted. Menali felt his shoulders quivering with silent laughter. Greatly daring, he leaned forward to kiss the top of the Dunmer's black hair.

  


“Not supposed to kiss other men either,” muttered Galvyn sleepily. “'S ver' bad. Shame.”

  


“Shame,” Menali agreed, and kissed him again. “Shh now.”

  


He woke in much the same position that he had fallen asleep. Galvyn, on the other hand, was wrapped around him like an octopus, arms around his waist, legs clamped around his hips, heels tucked around his shins. Both of them were covered with Galvyn's hair under the blanket. Unbound, there was a lot of it. Menali realized with startlement that Galvyn's hands were resting against the naked scars on his back. It did not hurt, but it was a strange feeling.

  


“Asleep you doesn't seem to have the same concept of personal reserve as awake you,” Menali said groggily. The only response was a sort of mumbling growl in Dunmeris from which he could not pick out words. Menali smiled and lifted his head slightly to squint at the door. A thin line of pale light shone under it, brighter than it would be at night. “All right, I think it's time to wake up.” He ran his hand up the back of Galvyn's head, scritching lightly with his short nails. He was rewarded with a small sigh, and then Galvyn released him and lengthened into a long stretch, arms over his head.

  


“I don't know why anyone ever sleeps alone,” he said.

  


“Probably they don't know what it's like not to,” Menali said mildly. “I didn't. Or maybe they're claustrophobic. Or the other person snores, or one of them wants it warmer or colder than the other - ”

  


“Yes, yes, stop explaining,” Galvyn said. He climbed out of bed and stretched hugely again, standing up on his toes so that Menali could see the blue-gray bottoms of his heels, and went to fumble around the dresser for his brush. The Altmer slid into the robe he'd worn over here.

  


“I'll go get dressed,” he said. “Do you want to have breakfast and then we can talk about going below?”

  


“Yes, I still want to try it,” Galvyn said.

  


Menali went back to his room to deal with his much shorter hair and dress in his student robes, and then over breakfast in the dining hall (it was in fact early morning, and on Sundas hardly any of the other students were up yet) they debated some details of their plan. In the end they made a trip to Winterhold first, across the narrow bridge. The weather wasn't so bad. Snow crunched underfoot, but there was no wind, and the sky was clear. They came back with a pair of knapsacks full of practical supplies, and cleaning tools strapped to the outsides of them. They weren't planning to stay the night. Menali had no early class on Morndas, but Galvyn had Advanced Destruction first thing.

  


“I share it with Dal gro-Galad, in fact, which is always delightful,” he explained to Menali in a low voice as they crossed the empty courtyard. The trapdoor was built into the paving under the courtyard's overhand on the North side, painted a similar color to the stonework and easily missed.

  


“That does sound awkward,” Menali said. “Has he brought it up?”

  


“No,” Galvyn said. “He's not a bad Orc, really. It's just embarrassing.” He bent to seize the ring and haul it upward. He was wearing a dull green and tan set of student robes as well, tunic-length over woolen hose; Menali guessed it was probably the cheapest thing he owned.

  


A rickety, crooked ladder led downward into the blue dim below. Menali followed Galvyn downward carefully, ears alert. With the trapdoor shut, sealed so tight there were no cracks, they had to fumble their way down in the darkness. There was creaking as they went, and the soughing of wind from more than one direction as air flowed through the tunnels like water. There was a smell of stone and ice. If there were sewers, they were so old and disused that no stink of them remained. The College's waste traveled through pipes buried in stone, and Menali had never been sure what its final destination was.

  


At the bottom of the ladder they found a narrow passage bathed in blue-white light, the walls slick with ice. A steel-frame cup on a short rod glowed gently ahead of them, a faint blue-white mage-light not unlike the blue ones up above.

  


“I thought you said it was warmer down here,” Galvyn said. His breath formed a cloud as he spoke.

  


“Well, it is further on,” Menali said. “But it's just as well we wore gloves.” He spoke quietly, but his voice produced a faint echo. “Come on, I'll show you. I think the college must have been much bigger at some point in history than it is now. I've only descended perhaps four stories below ground, but I'm sure there is more.”

  


“Why would they build so much of it underground?” Galvyn asked, as he followed Menali up the passage. When he was a few feet past the mage-light it dimmed and went out. Menali knew to wait for the next one to light up, sparing him the near-panic of his first foray down here. He was listening, but heard no gasp of dismay from Galvyn. Apparently the Dunmer was not bothered by the darkness.

  


“Maybe before the cataclysm they needed it to be more defensible than at present,” Menali said. “I haven't been able to find much more than you already know. I assume Urag has something on it somewhere, but if so he has been reticent. Here we are, the first chamber.”

  


The tunnel opened out into a large, surprisingly well-lit space, the slick ice underfoot petering out onto a stone platform. They stood at about the median level of a two-story space, stairs leading down from the platform to a floor half-covered in dirt and gravel. The walls and ceiling were squared off, made of blocks of quarried brown stone that gleamed slick with moisture. There were mage-lights in sconces on the walls. Archways led off in three directions, and in the distance the sound of falling water could be heard.

  


“It's not round,” Galvyn said.

  


“No! I wondered about that too,” Menali said, gesturing excitedly. “They must've built the first version of the College quite differently in Shalidor's day – ” He stopped, freezing on the platform as he listened to a distant sound, a sort of whooshing hiss.

  


“That doesn't sound like skeevers,” Galvyn said.

  


“Sometimes there are ice wraiths,” Menali said.

  


“Save your power,” Galvyn said. “They're easy enough to put down with lightning. Besides, I need to trap their souls before they die.”

  


“If you like,” Menali said, a little breathlessly. He was aware of his heart beating faster. It was his inclination to summon a familiar at once. Not to do so felt teeth-settingly wrong. On the other hand, Galvyn was right. And he might need the power later. And he wasn't sure he wanted to explain certain things to Galvyn yet.

  


“Are you all right?” Galvyn asked.

  


“Yes, fine,” Menali said. He shook himself. “Come on, I'll show you the cells! I don't know if they kept their own jail or if it was for summoning or something. It's to the right down below. Mind your step.” He went down the stairs carefully, careful of the slick stone. “Of course I wouldn't be staying there, mind you, it's too close to the ladder up. Anybody might wander in.”

  


“Is it easy to get lost down here?” Galvyn asked.

  


“Yes,” Menali said. “That's why we brought chalk. It's so wet down here that the marks from last time are probably gone by now.” As he turned into the right-hand archway he took a piece from his pocket and drew a crude arrow, large and obvious, pointing back toward the larger room. The scraping sound it made on the stone raised the hairs on his neck.

  


The hallway was broad and short, and it led down a shallow flight of stairs into a broader area with a row of cells against each wall. There were ten in all. All stood open. Some had scrape marks in the stones of the floor, but they were too faded and washed by time to really read. Only a faint impression of circularity could be divined, the faint outline of part of a letter in a daedric script here or there.

  


“They had ritual circles inside,” Galvyn said. “Is that why you thought they were for summoning?”

  


“Yes, or maybe some kind of experiments,” Menali said. “Back through here there's a back stair leading down. I'm sure there were other ways at some point, but this is the only one I've found that isn't blocked off. The other ways through the big room mainly leads to explored areas. There's an old atronach forge and some dead ends and of course there's the Augur of Dunlain.”

  


“Wait, the Augur of Dunlain is real?” Galvyn asked.

  


“Of course,” Menali said. “He wouldn't let me in, though, he just talked to me through the door.”

  


“What did he say?” Galvyn asked. Menali thought he sounded a little skeptical.

  


“He asked if I had a question, and I said no, not at the moment,” Menali said. “He said I had no need for augury and I should go and do what seemed fit to me. So I did.”

  


“You were talking to a real clairvoyant and you didn't ask a _question_?” Galvyn said. “Menali, that's really thick.”

  


“Maybe,” Menali said. “But I don't want to know the future, Galvyn. I might try to change it and then make it worse. People in books always make it better, but they're not real.”

  


Galvyn grunted.

  


“Why, what would you ask? Mind your step, it's slick.” He led Galvyn down a narrow spiral stair, scratching an arrow at top and bottom as they went. They had to grope their way along here in near-total darkness. If there had been a mage-light in the stairwell, it was gone now. A flickering light kindled below them as they approached the lower hallway. It was a relief to Menali to step out into the bigger space, though it stretched on ahead into blackness. There were rotten shreds of carpet here, and slick white mushrooms in the darker corners.

  


“I would ask what I should do,” Galvyn said. “If I should go home and get married or try and make a go of it on my own.”

  


“I don't know if he answers that sort of question,” Menali said. “That doorway leads to an office, I think. Anyway there's a lot of small tables and big chairs. Up ahead the corridor splits into two, right and left. I took the left way last time. It leads to an old dormitory. Some of the doors are still intact. Beyond that there's a room with the remains of longer tables in it that I think must have been a dining hall, and a bigger round room with more cells.”

  


“That doesn't sound that interesting,” Galvyn said. “Let's go to the right. Can you imagine if we found the old library?”

  


“Surely nothing would be left of the books now,” Menali said regretfully. “Everything would've been taken away when everyone moved up, and anything that was left would have rotted away.” He made another chalk mark on the floor at the junction, pointing back the way they'd come, and they turned down the right-hand corridor. The dim mage-lights lit as they approached and dimmed as they moved on, surrounding them in a traveling circle of pale light. Here the little lights were in sconces on the wall. The traveling light gleamed on the slick stones, and here and there frost glittered in the corners. The breath of both mer was visible in the cold air.

  


“I thought you said it gets warmer,” Galvyn said.

  


“Well, it does in the room with the cells,” Menali said. “I've never been this way.” He stopped again at a distant sound, a pattering of faint footsteps. Either there were several people moving in close formation, or there were a great many little feet.

  


“That didn't sound like skeevers either,” he whispered.

  


“No, I think it's more likely _get down!”_ Galvyn grabbed his shoulder and jerked, and Menali flattened himself to the floor in time for a greenish glob to shoot over his head and splat onto the floor behind them. From his now limited viewpoint he saw lightning crackle over his head, briefly illuminating the darkness ahead. There were complicated many-legged shadows, and there were eyes. So, so many eyes. Something shrieked as the lightning hit it, and then Galvyn dove to one side of Menali as more globs of goo fired over their heads.

  


“Galvyn, I can -”

  


“No, I've got it,” Galvyn said. The strangely mixed aura of elemental power and the elusive not-quite-there-ness of an Illusionist was easily discernible now, power agitating in the air around him.

  


He scrambled up to his knees and swept his hands in front of him in opposite arcs, forming an invisible ball in the air. Light kindled inside it and became flame. He shoved it away from himself and it flew forward into the darkness. This time the spiders were mostly out of its way by the time it hit, but that didn't matter because on impact it exploded into a massive ball of fire. Now the end of the corridor was lit by burning bodies as the spiders squealed and flailed, the afflicted lighting the untouched. Now Menali could see, as he scrambled to his feet, that they ranged in size from about as big as his fist to bigger than a wolf, but they were all of the same hairy short-legged big-fanged conformation that was common to Skyrim's ice spiders.

  


It seemed like an unconscionably long time before silence fell. Some of the bodies kept twitching and flailing long after they had fallen. The stink of burning hair was unpleasant, and with it another, more pervasive stink of burning exoskeleton, bearing the alien olor of some stranger flesh and blood than man or bear or skeever.

  


Menali climbed to his feet slowly, covering his nose and mouth with a sleeve, and bore forward into the smoke. The flames had also caught webs that filled the corners of the hall up to the bend ahead, providing more light but making it harder to breathe. Galvyn moved beside him.

  


They found more webs in the corridor beyond, but not more spiders. There were egg cases in some of the side rooms. Galvyn set them on fire. At first it seemed as though it would form a great square, because there was another bend up ahead, but Menali knew that could not be the case because no corridor connected this one with the dining area he had seen before. The other bend turned out to lead to a staircase that went downward, half-choked with a mixture of rubble and stinking piles of what was almost certainly spider droppings. There was broken furniture and the scraps of tapestries and rugs, as though the creatures had dragged the contents of the rooms here to dump them. Most of it was to one side. The stairs were passable.

  


Menali was about to ask if Galvyn also felt the faint warmth rising from below when he heard scrabbling behind them again. He whirled, eyes huge. It did not sound like the little ice spiders. It sounded much larger.

  


Out from one of the side-rooms, parting the curtain of burning web, came an ice spider bigger than a horse. It chittered angrily to itself as it tip-tapped forward. The way it patted out the smaller fires with its front legs made Menali's stomach turn. It suggested some form of dreadful intelligence. He turned and grabbed at Galvyn's sleeve, dragging him toward the stairs. The Dunmer promptly vanished from view. Menali felt a hand on his, and then a strange tingling feeling filled him, and he looked down and saw his own sleeve vanish. They shuffled downstairs as quickly and quietly as they could, trying to avoid the mess, but Menali could hear that the great spider had stopped moving above them, listening.

  


Then he heard it begin to run, eight clawed feet scraping at the stones of the floor. Ahead of them yawned a black corridor, the sconced mage-lights betraying their position even though they were invisible as they drew nearer. Menali's stomach sank as he realized the way forward was choked with fallen stone and dirt.

  


“It's heard us! Find something it can't fit through,” Galvyn whispered.

  


“There's nothing! I don't – wait, here!” Menali grabbed at Galvyn's arm again as his left hand passed over stone and waved in empty space. He groped his way into a narrow, black doorway. There was a distinct current of faint heat. He scrambled in as fast and as far as he could, because the way was too narrow to admit them two abreast. Behind him he could hear the spider chittering as it descended the stairs, kicking away broken furniture.

  


A mage-light lit in front of him, but this one was stuck in a cup on a stake, like the first one they had seen. It lit a section of corridor where the stone had crumbled and a tunnel seemed to have been dug beyond it in dirt. Roots protruded into the dirt ceiling, and there were more mushrooms of different colors here.

  


“What's this?” breathed Menali.

  


“Hurry,” Galvyn hissed. “I can hear it behind me!”

  


Menali scooted forward into the dirt tunnel and turned to grab Galvyn and drag him back, just in time to see a giant, hairy claw dart into the black doorway and slam into the floor. It groped impotently, searching, and he saw the gleam of eight round eyes as slick and black as glass marbles from the darkness beyond. He hurried around the bend, pulling Galvyn with him, just in time to avoid a green splat of venom as it hit the wall where they had been.

  


The Dunmer faded into view beside him as the mage-light behind them went dark. Another one lit up ahead, but dimly, half-buried in fallen dirt.

  


“I still have power,” Menali said. “All of it. I can get us out when it's time to get out.”

  


“All right,” Galvyn said. “I can't risk fireballing it in close quarters. Forward?”

  


“Forward.”

  


Menali pursued his way up the dirt tunnel. It wound downward for what seemed a quarter-mile, a long time to be squeezing through the narrow bits with his knapsack on. Fortunately he'd never been claustrophobic.

  


“It's getting warmer,” he said to Galvyn softly. “No more frost.”

  


“Yes. I wonder what's down here?”

  


“Surely we'll soon find – oh my,” Menali breathed.

  


The tunnel opened out into a massive corridor up ahead, lit with the dim light of high strange bulbs in round sconces. The walls were brass, formed into intricate gridded shapes. Behind them moved gears and levers of unknown purpose, hissing and giving off faint steam. More strange machinery moved under the perforated metal of the floor. Menali stepped out, looking around with wide eyes. The hallway ended in a cave-in to his left. To the right it stretched onward and then dropped off, presumably in a ramp or stairway. The ceiling was a story and a half high, and the way was broad enough to drive a cart up it.

  


“These are Dwemer things,” Galvyn said, as he stepped out beside him. “And good gods, all of it's still working. You didn't know this was down here?”

  


“I don't think anyone did,” Menali said slowly. “They'd have had to get past the spiders, right? And the doorway was easy to miss in the dark.”

  


“The College must have been excavating it at some point,” Galvyn said. “And abandoned it because – well, why? Perhaps there was nothing more to learn from it.”

  


“Perhaps. Maybe someone's monogram on it is tucked away in Uruk's collection upstairs,” Menali said. “You'd think old Tolfdir would've said something about it at some point.”

  


“This is probably from before his time.” Galvyn moved up the corridor slowly, looking around. The machinery cast strange and sinister shadows over the sharp planes of his face. “And Savos Aren was the only person here older than Tolfdir, and he was killed by that Thalmor agent. The one Ivir Salvorsson killed.”

  


“Savos Aren kept secrets,” Menali said. “He never told anyone what happened in Saarthal.”

  


“Yes. I think there's a ramp up ahead,” Galvyn said. They paused at the top of the stone slope, looking down. There was a landing below, and the hallway seemed to turn to the left beyond it. A think like a potbellied stove stood in the corner, the brass gleaming as it hissed to itself.

  


“There's no dust,” Menali said. “No water. And everything works. Why?”

  


At that moment there was a double _click-click_ behind them. Both mer whirled to see a pair of round apertures near the top of the ceiling slide open, and out of them came...

  


“More bloody spiders,” Galvyn growled. These appeared to be made of the same brassy metal as the walls and mechanisms. Menali had seen them before – but only in illustrations.

  


“Repair drones,” Menali said. “There are words that will make them leave us alone, but – they're different in every Dwemer city - ”

  


They had a little whirling core atop their central carapace, six walking legs tipped with spikes and two grasping manipulators with pincer-hands in front. The two mer started to back slowly down the ramp as the Dwemer spiders clicked down onto the floor and turned and began to move unhurriedly toward them.

  


There was another click from behind them. Menali slid around behind Galvyn, back to his back, in time to see something taller than Galvyn and almost taller than him glide around the corner down below. It moved atop a great sphere of brass, and it had an upper body made of brass as well, the brass mask of its face intricately carved with triangles and ridges, a high crest like a helm standing up above it. As it rolled toward them up the slope it held out one mechanical arm. A long spike extended with a slide of metal on metal. The other arm seemed to have sort of odd triangular mechanism he couldn't quite parse out in the dim light, but it was raising it to aim at him.

  


“Crossbow!” he shouted, and dropped. Galvyn was a little slow. The brass bolt ploughed a furrow across the top of his shoulder and buried itself in his knapsack. Menali heard his grunt of pain, but the Altmer was already sliding down the slope, trying to stop himself but unable to gain purchase on the stone. He could hear the spiders coming behind them. Up ahead, the spheroid thing was rolling toward him, its brass mask without expression.

  


_Dwemer sphere. Dwemer sphere. Page 212 of Glarien's Histories of the Dwemer, with illustrations, footnote: these constructs are highly resistant to magicka..._

  


“Kazhdak,” Menali breathed through trembling lips, pointing at the floor near the Dwemer construct. Power shot from him in a deceptively small purple sphere. It impacted in a small cloud of smoke, and the smoke rose and coalesced into the hulking shape of a warrior in black armor. Red inlays glowed faintly in the dim golden light of the ruin as the dremora unshipped an axe that Menali knew from experience weighed as much as his own entire body. The daedra wore a spiked helm, heavy and black, hiding the angular features of the demon.

  


He heard lightning crackle behind him as the Dunmer cast a spell. Then he finally hit the bottom of the slope, and a second after that Galvyn hit him in the back, tumbling him over. There was a breathless moment as they disentangled each other, and Menali heard a dreadful laugh from his left, a sound like a saber cat snarling from the bottom of a well. It had a metallic echo. The dremora Kazhdak was trying to free his axe from the dwemer sphere's shoulder, its crossbow arm dangling uselessly as it flailed at his armor with the spike. Sparks flew from the brass with each blow of metal on metal.

  


“Move,” Menali said. “He'll take care of it. We need a place to hide.”

  


“Is that a bloody _dremora?”_ Galvyn demanded as they ran down the hall. Doorways opened to either side up ahead, closed with brass doors that were welded together from flat bars to form intricate geometric designs. A vaster space opened up beyond them, an even higher ceiling. The loud hum of other machinery could be heard from beyond.

  


“Yes! Move!” Each of them tried a door. Menali yanked without effect on the diamond-shaped handle of the one on the right. His brief release of magicka had no effect on it. “I can't unlock it,” he said. Behind them, there was a further clash of metal on metal, an unpleasant grind and slide and spark.

  


“This one's open,” said Galvyn. He stood before a room containing two rows of three stone beds each, a table at each end of the room, and a series of shelves. They slammed the double doors shut behind them, and after a moment's panicked fumbling found the lever that engaged the lock.

  


There was a _click-click_ from behind them.

  


Menali turned just in time to see a spiked leg coming at him. He tried to dodge aside and was too slow. Agony erupted in the lower right side of his chest as the spider buried a four-inch brass claw between his ribs. He screamed, kicking at it frantically, blood spurting around his clutching fingers. Galvyn leaned past him, teeth bared and hands outstretched, and there was a crackle of lightning in the instant before electric agony arced through Menali's entire body. Galvyn's spell had earthed itself into the floor, but also into the other thing to which the spider was connected. The Dunmer kicked it away too late as Menali sank down against the locked doors, stunned and twitching.

  


He was aware of a feeling of numbness where the spider had pierced him, and another numb place on his right foot. The construct was gone now, out of his view, but he was vaguely unsure where the steam rising past his eyes came from. He was looking at a patch of shadowed stone floor. There was a scrap of red carpet with a geometric design woven into it in brown.

  


It needed all of his attention to maintain the tether of will that held Kazhdak to his orders. If he lost consciousness the dremora would not be unsummoned, not until the term of power expended on him ran out; but he would no longer be bound to attack Menali's enemies. Before his mind's eye he could see that axe coming down on Galvyn even as the Dunmer tried to defend him.

  


It was hard to breathe. There was a funny noise each time he exhaled, and the right side of his chest felt... wrong. Very wrong. Something was moving that should not move. He could hear Galvyn walking away, hear the scrape of metal on stone. He must be dragging the spider to another part of the room, checking for others. Menali didn't remember seeing any of the round ports in the walls. It must have been in here cleaning. What dreadful luck.

  


Heavy footfalls behind him. Armored boots.

  


“Your enemies are dead, yellow worm,” said the harsh voice from behind and above him. “Are you about to die and relieve me of your presence?”

  


“Not yet,” Menali wheezed. “Guard the – guard the door.”

  


He felt the daedra's will contest with his, but Menali was still conscious. He fought down the dremora's rebellion with the strength of desperate panic, knowing that the daedric axe could shear through the brass doors as though they had been paper. There was a scrape of boots on stone as Kazhdak turned his back to the doors, grunting in grudging respect.

  


“It was only the one,” Galvyn said. Menali could not yet lift his head. He could just about wiggle his toes. “Menali – Menali?” A warm hand groped at his shoulder, then at his throat. “Oh, thank the gods. Is this a burn?” Something pushed at his shoe, and then Galvyn swore. “Contact burns. Fuck, it got you through the spider. Menali, can you hear me?”

  


“I just can't move,” Menali said, with difficulty.

  


“It'll pass. I'm so sorry. Hold on, let me get the pack off you. That's your dremora outside?”

  


“Briefly,” Menali said. He sat limp against the doors as Galvyn slid the knapsack from his arms, and then his shoulder was resting against Galvyn's chest as the Dunmer put his arms around him. He laid a hand over the new hole. There was a faint flare of white light as power transferred from one to the other. Pain returned as the numbness went, as new nerve endings grew. Menali drew a deeper breath, then hissed between his teeth as he felt something in his chest move again, a stabbing agony.

  


“Something's broken in there,” Galvyn said. “I'm no healer, and now I've nothing left. Can you - ?”

  


“Kazhdak takes nearly everything,” Menali said. “The lock that didn't – it took – ” he stumbled over his words, his tongue clumsy in his mouth.

  


“Easy,” Galvyn said. His tone was very calm. “Breathe. We'll wait here a while. Give ourselves time to gain power back. I'm going to try and move you away from the door, all right? I don't want one of those things to reach us through it.”

  


The thought of moving was no thought at all, but what choice did they have? Menali did his best to get his rubbery and uncooperative legs under him as Galvyn dragged his left arm across the Dunmer's shoulders. Together they managed to get upright, though Menali was hardly able to move still. Every muscle felt rubbery and thick, as if he'd just run a dozen miles.

  


There was a _pouf_ of discharged magicka from outside the room as the dremora's term of summons expired. Menali felt the link between them break. He sighed as he felt the pressure on his will lift. Galvyn helped him sit on one of the stone beds, then crept in behind him, sitting up against the wall to hold Menali upright against his chest. Menali laid his head back against the Dunmer's shoulder. There was a faint smell of blood from the gouge on the other side, where the bolt had cut him on its way past. It was still stuck in the other knapsack over by the door, gleaming malevolently.

  


“I'm tired, Galvyn,” Menali whispered.

  


“Yes. Lightning does that to a body,” Galvyn said. “I'm sorry. Sleep, if it helps. We're going to be here a while.”

  


“I'm afraid,” Menali said.

  


“You won't die,” Galvyn told him. The gruff voice in his ear was firm. “I won't let that happen. I know it hurts, but you're breathing all right, and I'm here. I won't let you go.”

  


“Never?” Menali asked.

  


There was a long pause. Then,

  


“Never.”

  


Menali turned his head into Galvyn's neck, away from the room's bright lights. With his chest against Galvyn's chest he could feel the Dunmer's pulse, strong and steady. He slept.

  


Some sound woke him, some scrape or click outside. He thought it was the spider coming back, and he tried to sit up, gasping. That woke the pain in his chest, and he slumped, groaning. Galvyn's arms closed around him, holding him up.

  


“Easy, easy. I'm here. You're all right, you're alive.”

  


“How long?” Menali asked groggily, squinting around at the room. Nothing seemed different. He hadn't noticed the scattering of books and papers on the stone table across the room, but he felt fairly sure it had been there before.

  


“Maybe three, four hours. It's hard to tell in here,” Galvyn said. “I'm going to set you against this wall and get us a drink, all right? I've tried to heal you a couple of times, but the spell just keeps failing on me. Not enough power.”

  


“All right,” Menali said. He gritted his teeth as Galvyn helped him scoot back to lean against the wall. Every breath hurt.

  


“A spider comes by every hour or so,” Galvyn said. “They check the door, and then when it's locked they go away. I can't tell if it's always the same one.”

  


“So we can't leave,” Menali said slowly.

  


“Not yet, anyway,” Galvyn said. He came back with a water skin and gave Menali a drink, then had one himself. “I haven't seen another sphere, so that's good news. I wouldn't depend on anyone looking for us. No one saw us go down the ladder, did they? They wouldn't know where to look, even if they don't assume I just seduced you and ran away with you to – I don't know. Wherever Nords go to marry other men.”

  


“I don't know either,” Menali said. “But the other apprentices probably do.”

  


He was aware of Galvyn looking at him sidelong.

  


“You know, we've only known each other a few days,” Galvyn said. “Made love twice.”

  


“That's true,” Menali said. “Much too soon to be talking about something as serious as marriage.” His tone was light, amused. It was odd to be talking about it at all when it was entirely possible he was about to die. Galvyn might live long enough for his magicka to recover, sneak out through the Dwemer spiders, but then there would be the greater spider above – and would he have power enough left to become invisible for long enough?

  


“Besides, I've nothing to bring to you.”

  


“Well, you can bring the powers of a Conjurer good enough to summon a dremora,” Galvyn said. “You didn't tell me you could do that.”

  


“I don't tell anyone,” Menali said.

  


“How'd you ever learn?” Galvyn asked.

  


“From a book,” Menali said. “I found it in the hold of the ship that brought me to Skyrim. I memorized the ritual and put it back very carefully. That was the easy part, mind you. The first time you summon them is – it's probably the hardest thing I've ever done.” This was a lot of talking against the pain in his chest, and he had to pause for a moment to breathe.

  


“Only an apprentice, and already summoning daedra,” Galvyn said. He paced the room gesturing sharply with one hand. “Gods, imagine what you'll be in fifty years of study! Everyone will remember the name of Menali of Winterhold.”

  


“It's Menalirien, really,” he said, smiling faintly. “If it's for posterity.”

  


“Menalirien. I can see why you use a nickname. It's quite a mouthful,” Galvyn said. He paused over by the table, shuffling through the papers. Menali watched him wearily, leaning on the wall with the waterskin resting against his thigh.

  


“You ought to know something about that,” he murmured. Galvyn glanced up, then grinned lopsidedly.

  


“Here's someone's old notes. They're in Cyrodilic. Looks like they were holding lectures down here, even. 'The Ruin of Namchthuz: Conjectural History And Useful Facts.' Let's see... Dwemer ruin... blah blah spiders and spheres, yes, very helpful... There's a steam bath area further along, apparently, and there are full water closets hidden behind secret panels. Very fastidious about their taboo places, the Dwemer. Probably one in here. Good, I could do with one. They've made some rubbings of – wait, wait!” He picked up a paper, staring at it intently. “There's a command word for the spiders. Says it'll identify you as a resident of the city. They've transliterated the glyphs into Cyrodilic and it's pronounced... Er... Glathzud?”

  


“Worth a try,” Menai said. “I have an idea about the spider upstairs. First let's try and find the privy.”

  


It proved to be behind a seemingly solid stone wall. Galvyn's questing hands eventually found a brass knob wedged between the stone blocks, and pressing it caused an entire section to click backward and then swing in. There was working plumbing and a big brass trough sink. They refreshed themselves as best they could – Menali leaned on the sink and Galvyn helped him in and out – and then they sat shoulder to shoulder on a bed to confer.

  


“I think we'll have to leave the knapsacks here,” Galvyn said. “So that I can help you. Most of it was things we were planning to use to make a space for ourselves for study, anyway, right? With the big spider gone, and the Dwemer drones safe, we can come back as often as we like.” He looked slantwise at Menali again, that evil look. “Maybe investigate the steam bath. Bring that glass thing and the snowberry seed oil.”

  


Menali smiled slowly. “I like that it's warm,” he said. “But we've got to make it back up first. Ready?”

  


“Ready,” Galvyn said. “Put your arm over my shoulder. I'll help as much as I can.”

  


The trip back up was a nightmarish blur. They encountered not one, but three spiders between the door and the tunnel, and both of them repeated _Glathzud_ in as many ways as they could think to pronounce it, gibbering nonsense syllables until the drones tip-tapped away about their work. In the narrow tunnel Menali had to go behind Galvyn, leaning on the dirt walls and elbowing his way along slowly, trying to smother the noise of his shallow, desperate breathing. They hurried past the mage-light as fast as they could, and up to the black doorway beyond where the light dimmed and died behind them. There they stopped to listen.

  


The great spider could be heard tapping and scraping around, but not very close by. It must be up the stairs.

  


“Laying more eggs, I'll wager,” Galvyn whispered.

  


“All right,” Menali whispered back. “I know how to kill it. Step out, so I have room.”

  


Galvyn obediently stepped out and away from the doorway, moving as quietly as possible. Menali sank down to sit against the stone doorway, breathing carefully.

  


“You remember when I told you I knew three Alteration spells?” he whispered.

  


“I do,” Galvyn said. “Lock, unlock, and...?”

  


“I believe it is called Equilibrium,” Menali said. He raised a hand and pressed it to his chest as he released the last dram of his magicka. He felt that reservoir begin, paradoxically, to fill again, even as a nagging pain began to build in every limb. The breaks in his ribs throbbed and stabbed him harder every instant.

  


_Not enough. More._

  


He felt something hot trickling from his nose and over his lips as he finally lowered his hand. His ears rang so that he could not really hear Galvyn's panicked whisper. Menali pointed out into the stone hallway.

  


“Kazhdak,” he said.

  


Galvyn sat against the wall holding him as they listened to the scrabble of legs and the harsh battle-scream of the daedra up above them.

  


“Stay awake,” Galvyn whispered in his ear. “Stay awake, Menali. It's not so far.”

  


Kazhdak had to carry him most of the way up. Lying over the dremora's shoulder, draped over the spiny armor, was not comfortable, but it kept him conscious over the long climb upward. He could hear Galvyn breathing harshly. By this time he was exhausted, too, his small wound still untreated. The daedra laid him down at the foot of the stairs leading up out of the big upper room before he vanished. From there Galvyn had to half-drag and half-carry him, sometimes pleading with him and sometimes ordering him to stay awake. At some point in that process everything slipped away from Menali, and he knew nothing for some time.

  


He was awakened by a brilliant light. Menali blinked his eyes open to find he was looking up into the long vulpine face of Pendre Aladirre. The Breton looked him over, blue eyes pale and unreadable in the nest of crow's feet around them.

  


“Do you know me, Apprentice?” she asked.

  


“Wizard Pendre,” Menali said. He looked around, but saw an important face missing. “Where's Galvyn Indoril, Ma'am? He was with me.”

  


“He's been healed and taken to his room to recover. I'll take you there directly, if you wish. I gather the two of you have done something rather stupid. Does anything still hurt?”

  


Menali sat up slowly. The Wizard sat back on her heels to give him space. She wore a green velvet robe he had never seen before, presumably her Sundas off-duty apparel.

  


“No, Ma'am, nothing hurts,” he said. “I'm tired, is all.”

  


Getting up the ladder was a chore, but he managed it, Pendre down below him keeping a gimlet eye on him. He staggered off to Galvyn's room to find the Dunmer already in fresh linens and tucked into bed. Pendre left him there with a stern injunction not to come to class until Tirdas.

  


Galvyn started to get up, but Menali waved him back.

  


“Stay,” he said. “I'm getting in there with you as soon as I've had a wash.” He did the best he could at the basin, cleaning the sweat from his body and the crusted blood from his nose and ears. He combed out his damp hair, and left his sweaty linens in a pile with his dirty robe to climb into bed with Galvyn. The Dunmer enfolded him tightly in his arms, one hand questing over his chest to feel the solid shape of his healed ribs.

  


“You scared me, Menali,” he said. To the Altmer's surprise, his voice shook. “Badly. I thought you were dead, once.”

  


“I'm not dead,” Menali said softly, curling his fingers into the Dunmer's black hair. “I'm alive. You're alive. We made it back.”

  


“You're not to use that spell again,” Galvyn said. “I mean it.”

  


“I hope not,” Menali said. “Gods, you're shaking, Galvyn. Sh, sh.” He rubbed the Dunmer's back gently, kneading the back of his neck. In response he felt Galvyn's hands run up and down his scars, unrepulsed and unashamed.

  


“I do want you to marry me,” Galvyn said. “At once.”

  


“Maybe we should finish out the winter term first,” Menali said.

  


“At once!”

  


“Come on. We haven't even been back to the baths yet.”

  


That occasioned a long pause. Menali grinned into the dark under the covers. He did not need telepathy to follow Galvyn's thoughts.

  


“Maybe after the winter term,” Galvyn grumbled. “But after that. I'll need time to collect soul gems. I forgot this time.”

  


“Yes, yes,” Menali soothed. He kissed Galvyn on the forehead. There was another thoughtful silence.

  


“Do that again,” said Galvyn.

  


“I shall,” said Menali.

 


	4. Bente and Alusei: Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The protagonists of this chapter are a female Nord and a male Argonian. There will always be definite consent in any story written by me, but this chapter does also contains BDSM elements, for those who might be uncomfortable with that.

Bente Valdirsdottir came to Winterhold with the first crop of students. She was a sturdy girl of about the medium height, broad-hipped and flat of breast and buttock when she first arrived, gradually more buxom as almost unlimited good food came to agree with her. Her skin was very pale, but her face bore the marks of weather when she first arrived, roughened and red on her cheeks and nose. She threw out the old homespuns she'd come in and wore the issued blue-and-tan student robes, drawing no attention to herself by garb. She wore no jewelry. She tied her light straw-colored hair back in a loose tail, the simplest possible way of dealing with it. And generally she got on well with people. The College's non-Nords were often wary of the natives, known for their national pride in a way that often diverged into the jingoistic and the xenophobic, but Bente disarmed this sort of suspicion very quickly. She approached everyone in roughly the same way: a little bluntly, but kindly enough.

  
  


She once heard Ahdossi say that it was the best you could hope for from a Nord. She did not hold it against the gray-mottled Khajiit, whom she had seen arrive bedraggled and bleeding at the bridge. She'd never said what had happened to her, but Bente thought she knew. She had been a player in that old and ugly story, though not for the crime of being a foreigner. She had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  
  


Bente had to spend most of her first term just learning to read and write fluently enough to understand the texts. She concealed this from other people as much a she could, did the practical spellcasting things she could do in the beginner classes, and sat up late nights sounding out words in Cyrodilic and daedric. She heard in the dining hall about Brynja's expulsion and what her and her friends had done to Inés Morin. She was there, watching from beside a pillar, with no expression on her broad high-boned face as Galvyn Indoril humiliated himself in front of everyone; she was there a week later when she saw him walking through the main courtyard with his arm around a taller Altmer she had only ever seen once, in the Arcanaeum, hiding in a corner with a fat volume on summoning. Someone called him a sword-swallower again. He laughed it off. That was startling enough that she paused to stare for just an instant before she hurried on to her room.

  
  


She was on the second floor, not far from the door. There was often traffic outside her door, footsteps, voices. She knew the notes of their voices before long, and what was serious and what was not; and what was serious to these people was for the most part not what was serious to her. After the first couple of weeks it was easy to sleep. If the stone walls seemed to close in, she could take a book with her to the courtyard and walk quietly there as she read. She was not the only one to do so. It was not considered particularly odd.

  
  


By the time the winter term had ended and the snows were thawing from the courtyard, the leaves of the snowberry bushes naked and bright, she could read well enough to start on some of the more difficult texts. She had one simple spell in every discipline, but though she had heard her fellow students talk about how so-and-so was already a master of Illusion, or Destruction like the Arch-Mage-in-absentia, or Alchemy, she did not at first feel strongly drawn to any one school of magicka.

  
  


Then came the Sundas when the sun was out, and she made the short walk to the town of Winterhold and the longer walk down to the sea. The wind was still biting in the month of First Seed, picking at her through her student robes. The beach was pebbly, with little clumps of grass growing on hummocks of barer dirt. When she crouched down on one of them to run her fingers through the water, it was very cold, and so clear that she could see her own hand as though through glass. She walked up and down for some while, looking at the things that had washed up: weeds and bones of fish, little crabs running about eating everything, shells, globby dead jellyfish. And Bente thought of what these things must be like alive, in their proper places, and she looked out to see trying to spot anything that might be alive; but the waves hid all. She knew to stay well away from the horkers as they lolled about snorting at each other, tusked and tailed like the world's ugliest mermen. The barnacles gave her some small consolation, for she could see them alive in their tide pools sieving the water with one very delicate fan apiece.

  
  


From that day forward Bente knew she had to see what was there in that dark and strange place beyond the waves. She studied what there was to learn, but she studied Alteration most assiduously of all. Illusion interested her only insofar as it could give her light in darkness; Restoration only because she had been required to learn one simple heal and she might need it if she were to be bitten. There were Destruction spells that could be cast by touch, and therefore still used underwater. It was hard to find them in Skyrim, but the Wizard Pendre knew a few; she taught Bente the ability to absorb health and life on contact partly because she actually showed an interest. Most of her other students were eager to learn spells that would keep them as physically far from harm as possible.

  
  


She socialized as little as she felt was necessary. She didn't want to end up like Inés, who might be blooming now but who had gone through Oblivion to get there. So Bente was there at the dinner table with five or six other women when the topic of sex came up. There were a couple of ribald jokes of the sort that Saelar, who was a Bosmer from a rich family in Cyrodiil, characterized as unladylike. She laughed as much as anyone, and while Bente was not much of a laugher, she did smile.

  
  


“Oh, but you have to tell us,” said Ahdossi slyly, looking sidelong at Inés. “At least whether he knows how to tease the man in the rowboat. He cannot be doing it with his tongue, not with tusks in the way.”

  
  


Inés turned three shades of red as Bente watched, but she laughed.

  
  


“No, but he has very gentle fingers,” she said. There was a chorus of “ooh” that caused students at neighboring tables to eye them suspiciously. Another fact Bente had learned was that if people couldn't hear you they always assumed it was about them.

  
  


“Not too gentle, I hope,” said Saelar.

  
  


“Leave off,” Bente said mildly. She had a soft mezzo-soprano sort of voice, not high or low enough to really draw attention for either. “You have not told us a thing about the boy you're seeing in town.”

  
  


“Now who told you I was seeing a boy in town?” Saelar shot back.

  
  


“We've all seen you hanging about the Frozen Hearth,” said Never-Seen, an Argonian Illusionist whose scales were gray shading to white in places, almost matching the stones of the College's ancient walls. Her slit-pupiled eyes were gray as well, so that when she held still with her mouth shut she was easy to miss even when completely unconcealed by magicka. Nobody was able to pronounce her Marsh name, which Bente had heard only once but which had about ten syllables and a lot of difficult sounds in it. Her Cyrodilic was nearly flawless, almost without accent; Bente secretly envied her. She had not yet been able to train away a very thick Nordic accent from her own command of that tongue.

  
  


“Well... It is the only inn in town,” said Inés placatingly. Her eyes darted from one to the other, and from the corner of her eye Bente watched her gnaw her lip. She watched anyone she had to talk to very closely, did Bente, and it had always seemed to her that Inés was not haughty, as she had once been told, but only very fearful.

  
  


“Indeed it is, but Bente has the right of it,” Saelar said. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, nudging her empty plate aside. “He's called Althor. It's awfully rare to find another Bosmer in Skyrim, you know. Let alone a handsome one. He has the old eyes.”

  
  


“What do you mean?” Bente asked. Saelar's eyes were very pale blue, and her hair was black, usually in multiple braids twisted around her head to form a sort of crown. She was about the same diminutive height as Inés, but more muscular, and she had the characteristic very long, very sharp, slightly outward-directed ears of that smallest species of elves.

  
  


“Black, black as ink,” Saelar said. “Not just the apple, but over the whole eye. Hardly ever do you see such eyes far from Valenwood. Nords believe they can hex a man just by looking at him, so life hasn't exactly been easy for him here. He was glad to see a friendly face.”

  
  


“What is he doing out here at the end of the world?” Ahdossi asked. “She would think a Bosmer would be most likely to find others in the bigger cities, like Solitude or Whiterun.”

  
  


“He wants to get into the college, of course,” Saelar said. “He's just too unsure of himself to walk up to the bridge and ask yet. I've been coaxing him along.” She made come-hither motions with both hands one after the other. “And meanwhile he's a great kisser. A lot of men don't know not to mash your face into your teeth.”

  
  


Inés was red again, which caused Bente to speculate about what her first kiss had been like.

  
  


“You smooth folk and your kissing,” Never-Seen said. “It seems overrated to me. Sloppy.”

  
  


“You ought to try it,” Ahdossi said.

  
  


“Have _you_ been trying it?” Bente asked her, producing a small chorus of giggles from the others. Ahdossi grinned.

  
  


“But no. Khajiit will walk beside a caravan with fire in her hands one day, perhaps. But to settle down and have litters of kittens with one of the pole-bearers, bah. No. Their bodies do not please her. Perhaps Bente would like to give her lessons?”

  
  


“I don't know that I like women that way,” Bente said mildly. “And anyway, I am not qualified to teach in this subject.”

  
  


“You could be,” said Inés tentatively. “There's that Imperial Destructionist. I think his name is Xerius? He looks at you sometimes. I think he's just shy. And he's very handsome.”

  
  


Bente was forced to give Inés slightly more credit for observation than she had expected. She had been carefully avoiding Xerius for a couple of weeks. Oh, he probably was a fine lover. He seemed to her like the sort to be very gentle, to masterfully guide things along, to always be in control of what was happening. The idea struck her with a sort of repugnance she had always known to be abnormal.

  
  


“I'm only here to study,” she said. “When I am ranked at Warlock, then maybe I will think about kissing and men in rowboats.”

  
  


“Fair enough,” Ahdossi said, her tufted ears still high. “But if Bente should change her mind, the offer is open. Ahdossi thinks she is very pretty.”

  
  


“Thank you,” Bente said, and turned the conversation. Not long after she parted from the others to go back to her dormitory, already thinking about something else entirely. She had been around Ahdossi long enough to know the Khajiit was not really in love with her; she would not make things difficult over being refused.

  
  


She was not yet master of the skill she wanted most. It would probably be months, perhaps years. J'zon had lent her his copy of _Breathing Water,_ and she had read it over and over again, trying to parse out the secret. She could absorb health, a little, had already waded out far enough to kill a couple of slaughterfish for the kitchen. She could make a light in the darkness, even with her hands in the water. She could cast a resistance against cold that would keep away hypothermia for nearly an hour, the mastery of which would probably get her to Journeyman rank before the term was out. But underwater she choked, like any landwalker. She was getting better at holding her breath, at least. She spent as much time down at the beach as she could.

  
  


The Sundas after that conversation dawned surprisingly warm and bright. Bente put on her rag wraps under a single old tan robe and a pair of sandals she'd made herself from a couple of pieces of wood and bits of twine. She took her bag out to Winterhold and down the steep slope to the water. The day was cool, but the sun poured a pittance of warmth on her head and shoulders.

  
  


By now she knew that she could cast the spell that defended her from cold five times if she cast nothing else. After that she would have to wait an hour for enough magicka to cast it once, and she would be tired. It annoyed Bente to be so weak when she heard the older Evokers talking about being able to fend off a blizzard for hours, but at least she was getting plenty of practice. She took off her robe and rolled it up to shove into the bag, pulling out a piece of dry canvas, the best she could do for drying herself off when she was done. Then she began collecting driftwood. She had found a small cave in the cliff face, its entrance largely hidden down in a hollow, and she now had a small firepit hollowed out in front of it. Here she piled up her wood. She left her bag beside it and took the canvas down with her to lay it near the water, rolled up tight as possible to keep it a little cleaner. The tide was in, lapping high on the pebbly beach.

  
  


The shining sea stretched out seemingly forever, until the curve of Nirn took it away from her sight. Its surface was black and glossy past a few feet out. There were horkers probably a half-mile to her right, made audible by the strange acoustics of the beach but not visible to her. She could hear them snorting and scuffling about as she waded slowly into the cold waves. Her toes began to go numb before the water was up to her knees. In the cold spring the water of the Sea of Ghosts could kill a strong man with the cold in two hours. Bente raised her left hand, concentrating on the feeling of magicka revolving beneath her skin. She knew the thread of every spell. Some people imagined them as taste or sound or threads of light inside them. Bente felt them as if they each had their own pulse, a half-dozen tiny hearts. Pendre's Resistance To Cold pulsed light and quick in the back of her neck, growing louder as she drew the magicka out and into all of her, flinging it wide like a net. The faint blue glow around her fingers was purely incidental. Her toes felt warm again, and she waded out into the sea, clad in nothing but rags. She caught up a rock in one hand. It might not kill a big slaughterfish in one blow, but it would stun it long enough for her to run back onto shore and out of reach.

  
  


When the water was up to her breastbone, sloshing up to her chin with every wave, she stopped. She could see down to her feet, though her toes were obscured by a little cloud of stirred silt. The water was very clear. It was black at a distance because it was so tremendously deep. Anything at all could be down there. It filled her with excitement and an aching longing to go and see. Bente breathed in as deeply and fast as she could for some seconds, filling her lungs until she was a little dizzy. Then she sank down slowly to sit on the bottom, bracing her feet against the slope in front of her to keep her from being washed out to sea. Her tail of hair floated up gently behind her.

  
  


As she sat, Bente meditated on the water all around her, on the weight and feel of it. She imagined her own lungs taking it in and pushing it out, as a fish's gills would do. She envisioned magicka stirring from a new heart, a new pulse in her chest, to make her lungs denser and stronger. She didn't know if that was really how it worked, for people that could breathe water, but it felt like the right thing. Lately she almost thought the new pulse really was there, so very weak, so very dim. If she tried to concentrate on it directly it would fade and vanish, slide away from her. Instead she tried to open herself to the water, to the magicka of the Sea and of Nirn.

  
  


She recast her spell once, when she started to feel cold. That meant that three or four minutes had passed. She was beginning to feel the ache in her chest and in her head that meant she would have to breathe soon, but she held on a little longer. It seemed so close! As she began to feel giddy she thought that she really could feel the magicka pulsing, second to her heartbeat and a little faster, flowing out into her chest. She was concentrating on it so closely that she did not even notice the black shape looming up from the depths out in front of her. And Bente breathed in.

  
  


She choked immediately, sharp agony as saltwater filled her nose and mouth and throat. She flailed her arms to try and get purchase, get upright, but her weak legs slid out from under her and she was tumbled over as the next wave went out. Blind in the darkness even with open eyes, unable to tell which way was up, Bente struggled, but did not know which way to kick or push. Spots flared in front of her eyes.

  
  


_What a stupid way to die. What happened to Bente? Oh, she drowned trying to breathe water._ She was terrified, furious, but her arms and legs were weakening. She had forced the water from her lungs, but there was nothing to take its place but more water. It hardly even hurt now. She was surrounded by a warmer, broader darkness where there was no pain at all.

  
  


And then an arm harder than a tree limb curled around her chest. She was yanked without ceremony in a direction that felt to her like downwards, but then her head broke the surface and she was blinking half-blind up into the blue sky.

  
  


“Breathe,” said a deep voice in her ear. She gasped in air, then turned her head to cough out more water. Bente was only half-aware of being dragged up onto the strand, pebbles scraping at her arms and legs, and then as she struggled to breathe it all went dark.

  
  


Bente was not sure how much time had passed when she knew herself again. She was aware of a powerful and pleasant sensation throbbing through every part of her body, and a golden light in front of her eyes that quickly faded. She lay blinking and panting for a moment trying to understand what had happened. She was lying on her side, damp rags still clinging to her, and she was not yet cold, so it couldn't have been long.

  
  


In front of her eyes there was a knee. It was covered with black scales, squarish and lapped slightly one over the other, a tight flexible armor like a snake's. The color of the scales faded to a slightly lighter green on the inside toward the thigh. As she watched it shifted slightly, muscle rolling beneath the armor. There was a soft rattle, a faint creak from a living throat.

  
  


“Ah. The woman is awake,” said a voice. It was deep and rough, with a slight tendency to increased sibilance on the S sounds. Bente pushed herself away as she sat up, instinctively putting distance between her and the speaker. She had no more choice about it than a sneeze or a blink. She did not regard the beach scraping her skin.

  
  


As she raised her head she saw that the Argonian was big, shoulders heavy and broad. His chest and belly looked oddly small by comparison, almost concave. It was easy to tell. He was dressed only in a damp loincloth made of undyed linen. It clung to the outline of a smooth bump that looked almost like a woman's. The color green swept up the flatter, broader scales of his belly and covered the front of his arms, and it flared around the deep sockets of his eyes, but his head and throat were otherwise black.

  
  


He seemed habitually to stoop slightly, head thrust forward like a roosting dragon as he rested his black-clawed hands on his thighs. His eyes were very pale, brilliant green around the slit pupils. Sharper scales ran in twin rows back from the narrow tip of his muzzle, forming sharp points that lined all the way back to his cheekbones and then grew to become twin rows of short spines. As she watched, both rows flattened slightly.

  
  


“It is a little late to be afraid,” he said dryly. “You were drowning when this one pulled you from the sea. What were you doing?”

  
  


_This one._ Bente had met few Argonians, it was true, but his accent and the way he spoke were strange to her. He had an aura of a sort that was unfamiliar to her. It felt strangely bright and warm in a way that was not really physical. 

  
  


“I am _not_ afraid of you,” she snapped, sitting up. This was not entirely a lie. What she felt alone with any man was not exactly fear. She was just acutely aware of where the nearest rock was that was big enough to grab in her fist. “I'm learning to breathe water.”

  
  


“This one questions your methods,” said the Argonian.

  
  


“Well, since you were born already amphibious, I don't see how you'd know a damn thing about how to learn.” Bente breathed deeply, rolling back into a squat. She rested her hands on her knees, testing the ability of her legs to bear her weight. They seemed fine. “I am Bente Valdirsdottir. Who are you?”

  
  


“This one promises not to interrupt again,” he said, spines still flat. “One is Alusei. If that is too hard for you to pronounce - ”

  
  


“I can pronounce _Alusei,_ ” she said coldly, brushing herself off as she stood up. She stalked over to get her scrap of canvas and dry herself as best she could. She was acutely aware of his eyes on her body, of how thin her rags were. Her nipples were stiff with the cold, though it was a small comfort that they were too pale to really show through the linen. Nevertheless, she did not ever turn her back. She couldn't. “I am not a savage.”

  
  


“One does not think you are a savage. One only thinks you are very rude,” he said, rising to his feet. Bente's stomach flipflopped as she realized he was a good six inches taller than she was. She did not realize she had stiffened until he stopped moving abruptly. One spine on the right side of his face lifted as his eyes flickered down her body and up again. There were faded scars on her belly and thighs, stretched old lines perpendicular to the length of her leg. Aflame with anger and embarrassment, they were red against the whiteness of her flesh. 

  
  


“I will go,” he said abruptly. “Give you good day, Bente Valdirsdottir.”

  
  


He bent to scoop up a net full of clams and turned to head back toward the up-slope to Winterhold with it on his shoulder. Bente stared after him, face heating. She choked on the words  _thank you._ Instead she watched him out of sight in silence, bit of canvas pulled close around her shoulders.

  
  


When she was sure he had gone she hurried to light her fire, swearing softly to herself in Skovha –  _Nordic,_ anyone who was not a Nord would call it. She was careful only to speak Cyrodilic where anyone could hear her. It was important to be identified with the College, not with the Nords of Skyrim, and Cyrodilic was the language held in common among the magi both of the College and in the far-flung Guilds.

  
  


She had been so close! She had really thought it was going to work! And now the power was gone, not the faintest throb of magicka in that silent place in her chest where the spell ought to be. And she had suffered the humiliation of having a strange man drag her from the waves. If he had not been there diving for clams she would be dead.

  
  


Who  _was_ this Alusei, anyway? He had survived the cold water, which meant he had potions or a spell. She had seen no bottle or belt. And the healing that he had used on her had not been the weak one that all students at the College were taught, the one that she knew herself. His aura had not been that of an apprentice. He was no beginner. She wracked her brain to try and remember an Argonian student among the Evokers or Conjurers, but did not remember ever seeing one. Skyrim's lizardfolk were few enough in number to be noted wherever they were found.

  
  


When she had dried her rags over the fire she shook them out and put them back on, then donned her tan robe and took up her bag to make the long climb back up to the college. Her hair was crusted with dried salt, but she'd want a wash by the time she got back home again anyway. She would sweat over the long climb. It was another problem an Argonian did not have.

  
  


When she'd had a wash and slunk back to her rooms to dress, warm socks on her feet, warm robes on her body, Bente felt a little better. She'd never seen him before. She'd probably never see him again. It was possible her visible ingratitude would lose her some credit when he told other people about it, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She would have to face it down as best she could. It wouldn't be so impossible to apologize and thank him if there were other people there. She was aware that she was probably the only person in College for whom that was true, but she couldn't help that. Then was then and now was now.

  
  


She went to the dining hall that evening. It was a bit sparser on a Sundas. Some people would be in Winterhold at the Frozen Hearth making the most of the evening. Some would be studying what they had put off in the morning and afternoon and eating food they'd squirreled away in their room. There was nobody she knew well, but she sat with a Dunmer girl she'd occasionally greeted, an Illusionist called Navari, and a skinny dark-haired boy whose name turned out to be Ilnung. He had the accent of one born and bred in Whiterun, Southern as the day was long, so she had no fear of awkward questions; and she had once heard him talk about liking petite women, so she was safe that way as well. She could only think of him with her hands tangled in his hair, spitting orders in his ear, and that was not what any man wanted.

  
  


None of the three was strongly inclined for conversation, but they chatted briefly and ate in a relatively comfortable silence. Bente was relieved to be reminded that she had not completely lost her ability to converse like an ordinary person ought. She found herself tired enough to sleep early. She dreamed that she lay on the bottom of the sea, looking at the pale surface far above, jellies of different sizes and colors pulsing dreamily as they drifted between her and the light.

  
  


She was busy in the week that followed, but Alusei returned to her mind despite her attempts to keep him out. She looked around as she walked to class each day, and when she was in the dining hall, but she never saw him. She saw one or two other Argonians she had not noticed, but no tall black-scaled creature with two rows of horns. It was annoying that she could not ask the other girls about him without drawing more attention to that interest than it deserved.

  
  


Instead Bente gradually led the topic of conversation around to Restoration at dinner on Middas. It was Never-Seen and Saelar and, surprisingly, Ilnung and one of his own friends, the Imperial called Xerius. He looked at Bente sidelong in a way that she thought was a little sad, but he greeted everyone politely enough, just quietly. His voice was a light, pleasant tenor, not the growling bass she had expected from such a tall fellow. He and Ilnung were sharply unlike one another. Xerius' aura had such a strong feel of smoke and ozone that it was difficult to have him as close as he currently was to Bente. The skinny Nord's aura was so faint that Bente was surprised to learn that he was in fact here to learn Restoration.

  
  


“I'm terribly bad at it so far,” he said candidly, waving a piece of bread. Dinner was fish chowder again. “But I've only just got here, you know. Maybe I won't be as hopeless as all that when I've had time to practice. The Wizard Pendre keeps threatening to make me take lessons with old Swims-In-The-Dark. I'm not sure he won't try and bugger me or something – not because he's Argonian, I'm not one of those people,” he added hastily, looking at Never-Seen. “If you'd talked to him you'd understand.”

  
  


“I have, I think,” Never-Seen said. “One would think he'd just crawled out of the Marsh this week, to hear him talk. If he's as good as all that the Hist surely wouldn't let him go – except maybe that he looks like at least one of his parents was An-Xileel.”

  
  


“What's that?” Bente asked.

  
  


“I thought they were a political faction?” Saelar said. She wore her hair in a single braid piled into a bun atop her head today.

  
  


“They are, but they're physically different as well,” Xerius said unexpectedly, then looked from one person to the other as everyone looked at him. “Is that wrong?”

  
  


“No, it's not wrong,” Never-Seen said. “When the daedra invaded some of us were... changed. Bigger, harder scales, more aggressive. The An-Xileel drove Dagon's army out of the Marsh, and then... Well, I think at this point everybody knows what happened then. You don't meet with them outside the territories often now, but some do still exist. And Swims-In-The-Dark has the big lapped scales and the double crest, and he's a big fellow. It might be why he's so leery of being around people. Maybe he doesn't trust himself around the Dunmer students.”

  
  


Bente was aware that the Dunmer had once enslaved some Argonians and that the Argonians had, in turn, eventually driven many of the Dunmer out of Morrowind, resulting in the large number of dark elves that now dwelt in Skyrim. She had not thought of Alusei in connection with all of that.

  
  


“Or vice versa,” Ilnung said. “There's an Indoril here, you know. Probably a nationalist.”

  
  


“Galvyn can't be as bad as all that, or he wouldn't come here to study, surely?” said Bente. “I've seen him around with an Altmer. Mene- something.”

  
  


“He goes by Menali. He's usually in the Arcanaeum,” said Never-Seen. “Not very talkative, but he's always polite if he notices anyone's there. I like him.”

  
  


The conversation passed on to other topics. Bente managed to get down to the beach a couple of afternoons, but not for very long. It was Sundas again before she was able to get her things together and plan a full outing.

  
  


This time there was a party of students already there digging clams at the bottom of the hill, chatting and laughing. Ahdossi waved to her. Bente waved back and passed on to the West to look for a quieter spot. Best not to risk drowning again. This time she would be more careful. She'd tried practicing face-down in a tidal pool before, but it just wasn't the same. She needed to feel the water around her.

  
  


Eventually she settled on a place where an outcropping of granite rocks pressed on down the sandy beach and right into the sea, where she could wedge herself into the slimy crevice between two rocks and slide down or up to get her head in or out of water. Nothing would wash her away this time. The feeling of weeds on her shoulders was briefly distracting, but she was able to ignore it after a couple of minutes. Warmed by her spell, holding her breath, Bente opened herself to the water once again.

  
  


It was a brighter day, and shafts of light pierced the water in front of her even as they pierced the clouds high above. Silt swirled and settled around smaller rocks, the shells of crabs and snails, and the sleek shape of a slaughterfish. It did not see her, swooping down to snatch at a smaller fish and carry it away down toward the continental shelf. And inside her chest the second heart beat, softly at first, then more strongly, magicka pulsing in and out and through her. She let it build until she could hardly stand it, and then she let it go.

  
  


Power flooded her from head to toe, bright and glorious and intoxicating, and this time when she breathed in, there was no pain. Bente grinned in unabashed delight as she realized that at last it had worked. It felt strange, because water was heavier than air in her chest and throat, but it was not unpleasant. Bente gathered her feet under her, pressing her hands back against the rocks, and pushed off to swim down deeper into the sea.

  
  


The spell wore off when she was about ten feet down. She felt the power start to subside and turned to kick for the surface, frantically expelling water from her mouth and nose before it should become agony. Her lungs were bursting for air by the time her head broke the surface. She panted as she treaded water just beyond the waves. Every dram of magicka was exhausted. It was a dreadful, dragging feeling, almost like being half alive, but it was worth it. She had done it at last! Now it was only a matter of practice. Bente turned and began to swim back toward the shore.

  
  


Alusei stood there, a net on his shoulder with a three-foot slaughterfish in it. Bente nearly stopped, but she wasn't going to let him think she was afraid this time. She swam in, half letting the waves carry her until her feet touched the bottom and she could walk up out of the surf. She didn't even care that her rags concealed little or that her nipples were harder than little rocks, or that her muscles felt as thought they were made of wire, stiff and hard to move. Nothing could ruin this day.

  
  


“Good morning, Alusei,” she said, as she went to get her scrap of canvas, slipping on her wooden sandals.

  
  


“Good morning, Bente Valdirsdottir,” he said. “This one is pleased to see you do not require further assistance.”

  
  


“No, and I never will again, I hope,” she said. “It only lasted a few minutes, but it did finally work.”

  
  


“The woman has learned to breathe water?” he said.

  
  


“Yes, at last.” She staggered over to where she'd piled her things and her kindling to start her fire. It was in the lee of the same rock outcropping that had provided her shelter in the water, where it continued up onto the shore. She fumbled at the tinder box for almost a minute, trying to make her stiff stupid fingers work.

  
  


“You have no power left. That is hard for a Warlock, let alone an Apprentice. Let this one do it.” Alusei squatted across the little pile of wood from her, holding out a clawed hand. His tail curled around toward one ankle, balancing him.

  
  


“I can do it,” she told him, eyes narrowed.

  
  


“Yes,” he said patiently. “But today, this one can do it faster.”

  
  


She threw him the tinder box. He caught it easily – in fact, the speed with which his hand moved was a little alarming. Bente was aware that she stiffened, but she couldn't stop herself. She grabbed up her robe and put it on over her wet things, half-turning away from him so that she could strip off what was wet. Trying to keep an eye on him but also conceal herself from him as she did so gave her a headache. It did not go away as she draped the underthings over a rock. She pulled her old robe tight around her and sank down beside the new fire as Alusei poked it carefully with a stick.

  
  


“I haven't thanked you,” she said.

  
  


“Because you are afraid,” he said. His tone was weary, and the spines on his head lay almost flat. “One tries to avoid that, but one cannot keep away from everyone and still study at the University.”

  
  


“I'm not afraid,” Bente said. “I am wary. It's not because you're An-Xileel, I didn't know what that was until Middas of this week. It is because you're a man, and we are alone.”

  
  


“One was born a man also, you know,” he said.

  
  


“Yes. But I can't help the way I am, either,” Bente said. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  
  


“You are welcome,” said Alusei. The two rows of spines rose slightly.

  
  


“Do they really call you Swims-In-The-Dark?” she asked. The rock at her back was cold, only slightly warmed by the sun. Reluctantly she leaned away from that support to hold her hands out to the fire.

  
  


“Yes. One dives out here often,” he said. “It is quiet down there.”

  
  


Bente smiled. “And there are no people,” she said.

  
  


“This too is true.”

  
  


“I will swim there soon,” she said. “When my spell can sustain me. I'll keep out of your way, of course. I don't want to take that from you.”

  
  


“The ocean is large,” he said, turning one scaly hand palm-outward. The scales on his palm looked smaller and softer, dark gray rather than black. “I think there is room for two people in it.”

  
  


They were quiet for a little while. Bente was very aware when her protection from cold wore off. She scooted closer to the fire, restraining a shudder. The walk back up to the college seemed impossible now. Well, she had time. She was beginning to feel groggy when she heard Alusei get up. She glanced up, but he was taking up his fish and walking away with it up the beach. She assumed he was leaving until he crouched down further along and started to gut it. With his claws. It was hard not to stare. She had not realized an Argonian's claws could _be_ that sharp. Khajiit, yes, everyone knew a Khajiit's claws were weapons.

  
  


Bente shook herself and got up to turn her damp underthings over on their rock. The heat of the fire only just reached them. Then she went to find more wood for the fire, hauling back a couple of sticks. It might not have been entirely necessary, but it kept her awake. From the corner of her eye she saw Alusei go down to the sea to wash his hands, and then he hauled back the headless, gutless slaughterfish spitted on a long stick.

  
  


“It will go faster if you hold the other end of this,” he said. Bente took the proferred end of the stick. They both stood holding the slaughterfish over the fire for a while, turning it occasionally. “This one does not know how done the Nord wants her fish,” Alusei said presently.

  
  


“Not very,” she said. “As long as it's got hot enough to kill the worms, I'll eat it.”

  
  


“Then let us eat.” They sat down side by side, each with an end of the stick on their knee, the fish hanging between them on a small slope owing to the difference in the size of a large male muscular thigh and a softer female one. Bente's body was softer than she cared for, now that she had as much food as she wanted, but that was not so unsafe in this place. She kept reminding herself of it. She was doing so again as she waited for the fish to cool.

  
  


Beside her, Alusei picked at the skin with the tips of his claws, largely protected from the heat by his scales. He glittered in the bright sun. Having him this close bathed her in his aura, in the bright warmth of a thing like a little sun. It made her a little more alert, made her sit up a little straighter.

  
  


“Do the claws make it harder to write?” Bente asked.

  
  


“At first, but this one has had a great deal of practice,” said Alusei. “Is it hard to swim with no tail?”

  
  


She actually smiled at him.

  
  


“It doesn't feel hard,” she said. “On the other hand, I am much slower than an Argonian.”

  
  


“Why do you want to breathe the water so badly that you come again after it nearly has killed you?” he asked. He took a bite, then took a small chunk of steaming pink slaughterfish between a thumb and index claw and delicately set it on the middle of the fish between them. An old paranoia reared its head – _Argonians cannot be drugged -_ but the idea that someone would drug a slaughterfish and trick her by eating it themselves seemed very farfetched. He was a handsome creature. He had no need of Bente and her scars, certainly not so badly he would stoop to such a thing. For that matter, Ilnung had suggested he might be a lover of men.

  
  


Bente plucked the morsel carefully, patting it between her fingers until it was cool enough to put in her mouth. It was juicy and salty, only very slightly sweet. She swallowed before answering.

  
  


“Thank you. It is hard to explain,” she said. “It's just – there are no walls out there.” She waved a hand at the sea. “No borders. No bandits. The sea is endless. There is so much I want to see that I have only seen from above.”

  
  


“No bandits, but great appetites are there nonetheless,” Alusei said.

  
  


“Yes. I am training for that as well,” Bente said seriously. She picked at her end of the fish, finding it just barely cool enough to touch without burning her fingers. “And to make a light in the darkness. Already I can defend myself from the cold. I suppose all of that seems very stupid to you.”

  
  


“No,” Alusei said. His crest shifted slightly, a very faint rattle of spines on spines as it lowered and rose again. He was looking down, green eyes intent on the dull scaly skin of the slaughterfish as he peeled it. Steam rose around his head and shoulders.

  
  


“I understand the desire to be far from the world above. Why do you, Bente Valdirsdottir? You are beautiful, and to have learned this fast you also must be clever. You may get for yourself whatever you wish.”

  
  


She eyed him, more internal alarms going off at the word _beautiful,_ but he had not looked up. His tone was calm, impartial.

  
  


“That is very flattering, but I'm not sure I'm ready to speak to you of where I came from. Not on the second meeting. Usually I don't talk of it at all.” She chewed and swallowed. “Not even for a delicious fish.”

  
  


She was surprised to see his crest lift, spines higher than she had yet seen. He turned to regard her with his head slightly on one side, and she heard his tail shift in the sand.

  
  


“You like it?”

  
  


“I do, I like it very much,” she said. “Thank you for sharing your fish with me, Alusei.”

  
  


“One is pleased,” he said.

  
  


They ate for a while in a more relaxed silence. As she had expected, Alusei ate a great deal, but even he couldn't finish the whole thing. He broke off the unused portion of skewer and carried the rest back up over his shoulder. They walked up the slope together. Bente was certain he went slowly to keep from outpacing her, because every muscle in her body was burning and it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other, but he did not comment. At the main courtyard she turned toward the Hall of Attainment, panting, and waved at him without being able to speak. He waved back, leaning in the gateway. He blended with the blackness of the afternoon shadow in such a way that only his green eyes really showed.

  
  


Bente washed up and went to bed very early, exhausted but well-satisfied with the day. It was good to stay friends with as many people as possible. That being the case, she was not entirely sanguine about Xerius walking up next to her on her way to Advanced Alteration the next day.

  
  


“May I walk with you to class?” he asked.

  
  


“Yes, of course,” she said absently. She was thinking of her new spell. She had not yet cast it again for fear of exhausting her magicka before classes.

  
  


“I didn't see you around on Sundas,” he ventured after a moment. His voice seemed small and tentative to her compared to Alusei's, and she was surprised at herself for making the comparison. Alusei was not human. It was apples and oranges, not really fair to either side. Xerius was very pale, a small flush high on each broad cheekbone. He was a tall man, but his features were very Imperial, sharp-nosed and blunt-chinned.

  
  


“No, I usually go down to practice by the water,” she said, as silent alarms went off. _I hope this is not going to be trouble._

  
  


“I see,” Xerius said. “Would you like some company there some week? Or do you prefer to practice on your own?”

  
  


Bente weighed her options. She could give a soft answer and have him upset when he saw her there with anyone else; or she could give a blunt answer and risk offending him now. Best to have it happen under her own eye, where it could be dealt with more directly. Besides, the latter might be excused by the Nordic temperament where the former looked like deliberate deception. He wasn't going to risk backhanding her across the face in the open quad no matter how insulted he felt. It did not occur to her that this proceeding was one that would not occur to most of her fellow students in any circumstances.

  
  


“You are a handsome man, and I hear you are a great Destructionist, but I do not have that kind of feelings for you,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

  
  


She watched him from the corner of her eye. He was looking at her closely, eyes dark brown and deep-set under his brows. He smiled very slightly as their eyes met, then looked forward again, clearing his throat roughly.

  
  


“No need to be sorry,” he said. “I thought you would be honest with me. Thank you for that. Do you mind if I still eat with you and the rest sometimes?”

  
  


“Not at all,” said Bente. “I think everyone likes having you there.”

  
  


“You're a kind woman,” he said dryly. “Give you good day, Bente.”

  
  


“And to you, Xerius.”

  
  


She went on her way relieved, her calm expression showing none of the anxious fluttering feeling fading in her chest. She knew why it was that she could not love someone like Xerius, with his soft voice and sad brown eyes so strangely at odds with his aura, but she was glad not to have to explain it to him. One might joke about sex with the others, but some things she still wanted private.

  
  


On the evening of that Morndas she went down to the beach. She failed to breathe water on two attempts of three and spent all her magicka the first two times, and then had to get out even before it wore off because her cold resistance wore off first. On Tirdas she was too tired to try it again. On Middas the sky was too cloudy to see without wasting magicka on her light spell on the way down and back, and she did not wish to draw attention by carrying a candle or lantern. Besides, she had tested for Journeyman, and she had no power left.

  
  


On the night of Turdas, when the sky was clear and the air was unusually cold, she dragged herself on her belly out of the surf after two successful casts in a row, half-frozen and without enough power to recast her cold resistance. She had left the fire burning before she went in against this exact eventuality. Bente wormed her way toward it with dogged determination, dragging herself with elbows and knees. She couldn't feel her toes or fingertips. It was bigger and brighter than she remembered.

  
  


Eventually she became aware of a pair of black clawed feet keeping pace with her on her left. She grabbed up a rock in her numb fingers and rolled onto her other elbow in one swift movement, arm cocked to throw, but the scaly shape glittering in the light of a cold sunset was a familiar one.

  
  


“Oh, it's you,” she said, and dropped the rock to resume her slow progress. “Good evening, Alusei.” She now recognized the soft rattle of Alusei's crest lowering and rising.

  
  


“Good evening, Bente Valdirsdottir. The Nord will allow herself to be helped?” Alusei said.

  
  


“I can get there on my own,” she said.

  
  


“Yes. But right now, this one can get you there faster.”

  
  


“I suppose,” she said. She stopped, trying to push herself into a sitting position. It was at this point that she discovered it is actually possible to miss the ground with a numb hand and fall over. Alusei knelt and scooped her up carefully. Bente was not a petite woman. She was startled by how easily he did it, how easily he straightened up again to carry her over to the fire.

  
  


“One has a spell that will help,” he said.

  
  


“If you like,” she said. She leaned against his shoulder somewhat stiffly. He was warm, and the feeling of his scales was as hard and smooth as she had expected. This close the faint scent of his body was different from the smell of a clean human or elf or orc. It was dry and slightly sharp, like putting her face into a handful of feathers.

  
  


Alusei set her down beside the fire, one hand resting on her back. Warmth bloomed around his fingers, and as it suffused her she ceased to be cold.

  
  


“Thank you,” she said, back very straight.

  
  


“You are welcome. You don't like to be carried,” he said.

  
  


“No. I am aware that most women do.” She turned to get her robe, pulling it around her before she turned half-away to get her wet rags off.

  
  


“If you would be a little less impatient the necessity might be avoided,” Alusei said.

  
  


“I am a Journeyman now,” she informed him. “In less than six months I will be an Evoker. If I were not impatient I would not even be an Apprentice. Life is short.”

  
  


“It will be if you drown or freeze, certainly,” he said.

  
  


“For such a big shiny dragon of a man you fuss like an old woman,” said Bente.

  
  


They regarded each other for a moment, Bente with her robe pulled tight around her as she knelt in her wooden sandals, Alusei squatting about twenty degrees around the fire from her. He flattened one side of his crest only, a gesture she had not yet seen.

  
  


“This one believes that may have been an attempt at a compliment,” he said.

  
  


“Yes, I know, I'm not very good at it,” she said. She knew she was turning red. Her skin was pale enough that any flush would make her look like a ripe tomato.

  
  


“This one will take it. It is a pity she does not like to be touched, because he would like to kiss her,” Alusei said.

  
  


Bente felt heat in her cheeks, in her forehead, and knew she was redder still. Probably all the way to the damp tips of her ears.

  
  


“It isn't kissing that I want,” she said. “And what I do want is not for you. I'm not right in the head.”

  
  


“Perhaps you aren't the best judge of that,” Alusei said. “What do you want?”

  
  


“If I say, you won't want to see me again,” she said.

  
  


“This one thinks that is very unlikely,” Alusei said. “Someone has to keep an eye on the Nord. She seems to lack common sense.”

  
  


Bente snorted.

  
  


“Well, you were warned,” she said.

  
  


“Indeed. Speak.”

  
  


“I want to knock a man over and ride him like a wild boar,” she said softly. “Fuck him so hard that his bones might break. He would know when I'm ready because that's when the fight starts.”

  
  


Alusei pursed his lips, air hissing faintly between his sharp teeth. All of his spines stood up. She was surprised to see his tail lash once.

  
  


“Are you trying to whistle without lips?” Bente asked.

  
  


“Yes. Is Bente sincere about this?”

  
  


“Yes,” she said.

  
  


“Then do it,” Alusei said. “Now. Here.”

  
  


“Men,” Bente said. “You always think you are the hardest.” She shook the robe away with an arrogant shrug, but she could not stop the flush from spreading. Only one thought could ever make her wet and swollen inside. It would never be the picture of a man's face looking down, the weight of a man's body on top. It would never be the thing every woman was supposed to want.

  
  


She tackled him from the ground, knocking him flat on his back. She heard the breath _oof_ from his lungs as every soft part of her was pressed against the hard length of his scaly body.

  
  


Alusei bit her on the shoulder. She felt his teeth sink into her skin, deep enough to draw blood, and she smothered a little scream in the scales of his chest. She balled up her fist and drove it into his stomach, making him let go with a gasp. She was already breathing as though she had been running, still tired from what she had done today, but there might never be another moment like this. Bente clamped her thighs around his hips, leaning her elbows on his upper arms to try and pin him down as he twisted his torso beneath her. On some level she knew this struggle was feigned. He could push her away very easily. But it was real enough to make her throb, to feel a rising need and desperation that she never gave reign.

  
  


“You can tell me to stop,” she said.

  
  


“No.”

  
  


“Tell me you don't want me, because I am a pervert.”

  
  


“No!” he snarled. His jaws snapped at her arm, within a quarter-inch of biting out a chunk of muscle, and she backhanded him across the muzzle, tearing her knuckles on the hard scales. His head slapped into the sand. Bente leaned one hand on his throat as she reached down with the other to jerk his loincloth away. There was only a smooth bump there, like a woman's; but as she ran her hand over it and pressed down it shifted and changed. A smooth length of glossy black cock glided from inside to outside, pointed up toward her. It was maybe as long as her hand, and the tip had an abrupt slope to it, like the end of a quill. The edges around the glansless end seemed almost ragged, certainly lumpy. There were a few little scales at the base, but they petered out quickly. Her roughly questing hand found a long node along the bottom of it, just like a human's.

  
  


Alusei rattled his crest again, grabbing at the wrist of the hand on his throat. Bente shifted her hips forward, grinding her clit against the base of his cock, where the ridge was that had once been all there was to see. He growled. She did it again, harder, hearing his tail thumping on the ground next to her. It felt good, so very good, pleasure blooming from each hard push as the end of his phallus bounced against her lower belly. Her nipples were tiny and hard as her breasts swayed above him, the nips and areolas flushed dark enough to be truly visible. They were normally so pale that they hardly showed.

  
  


He was shoving his feet into the sand for leverage, she could feel his hips lifting off the ground slightly despite her weight, but he had not tried to throw her yet. She wasn't leaning so hard on his throat that she was really preventing him from breathing.

  
  


“Oh, you don't like that, do you?” she whispered harshly. “Always want your cock in right away. Well, you can wait until I'm ready or you can go home alone.”

  
  


Bente was ready for him to wilt, to object, to do _something_ to suggest he knew how wrong this was and hated her for it. Instead she felt him get even harder. She kept grinding until she could hardly stand it, until she wanted him inside so badly that it really hurt, and then she shoved herself forward and down. She was not gentle. The sharper tip of his phallus raked across the little valley inside hard and suddenly. She stifled another little scream in her own shoulder, thighs clamped so hard around his hips that there were already scale imprints in her flesh. She could feel the bones inside him between her legs, could feel his cock jump and twitch inside her. His eyes were so wide they looked about to burst out of his skull, mouthful of white fangs bared to the night sky. His tormented thrusts lifted her physically from the ground as he tried to make it go faster. She leaned her full weight forward, shifting her hands to his chest as she kept holding on with her thighs, tormenting him with her slowness as she began to rock her hips forward and back. He grabbed at her waist, claws indenting her skin.

  
  


“More,” he hissed. Bente hit him again across the face, knocking his muzzle around. _“More.”_

  
  


“Beg me.”

  
  


“Please! Faster! More!” He let himself rest on the ground unwillingly, shoulders pressed into the sand. Bente did speed up then, knees sinking in to either side of him as she bore forward and back. She could feel the point of his phallus rubbing that sensitive spot inside at every thrust, and she ground her clit into him hard with every movement. It was glorious, it was triumph and joy and the warm, almost achy feeling of pleasure radiating from that center all through her lower body. She could feel it building, and it had been so long since she had really let it build. When the release finally came she was unable to stifle her scream. It rang over the beach and echoed from the rocks as she shook, pelvis jerking helplessly as the contractions grasped and squeezed him inside over and over. Her thighs grasped him so convulsively tight that without his scales she thought she really _might_ have broken his bones. When she had been coming for almost a minute she felt him thrust his hips upward again, mouth wide open and showing a startling length of gray tongue as he arched his back into the sand. Inside her he twitched and jerked, and she felt the heat of his seed bathe the length of her cunt. It prolonged her orgasm even longer, until she slumped helplessly onto his chest and her grip on his cock gradually began to relax.

  
  


They lay there for a little while, their breathing a sort of see-saw that kept lifting Bente slightly and lowering her again so that she felt all his ribs and the edges of his pelvis each time she came down. She felt every delicate shift of muscle behind the hard scale. She curled her hands around Alusei's shoulders, distantly aware of the little pains in knuckles and hips and shoulder that meant she was still bleeding.

  
  


“I am a monster,” she said groggily. She could not get up. The fluttery feeling of him gradually going flaccid inside her was nice, relaxing, an invitation to sleep.

  
  


She felt him laugh, and heard the faint creak-rattle in his throat.

  
  


“Would you like to know how much you've hurt me?”

  
  


She made a weak snorfling noise into the scales of his chest. He had no visible nipples. Either they weren't there, or his armor hid them.

  
  


“Not at all?” she said.

  
  


“Not at all. Do you know what it takes, to make this body feel anything through the scales of a – ha, a monster. One is not as others are. You will let him heal you?”

  
  


“I will allow it,” she said. A hand rested lightly on her back, and this time she was awake enough to feel the full power of it leach through her body, blood and bone. Little points of pain faded, and she was still aroused enough that when the feeling hit her clit it started another, smaller orgasm.

  
  


“Oh that – that's -” She hardly moved outside, sighing as she pushed her hips into him again just a little. It was less intense, but it went on surprisingly long, a series of lulling little waves. He did not get hard again, but he held her close, arms around her as she lazily rode it out.

  
  


“Now that does not usually happen when one heals,” he said.

  
  


“Special circumstances. I'm not sure I can get up,” she said.

  
  


Bente felt him sigh. They lay together for a few moments more. After a while he said,

  
  


“This one loved a girl once, back in the Marsh. She was small and delicate and her scales were gray and white. This is a rare thing, you understand. She wanted a man big and strong. And she spoke to this one kindly.”

  
  


“And she was hurt by accident,” Bente said. It wasn't really a question. She had felt with what complete lack of effort he could lift her weight even with just his hips.

  
  


“Yes, badly. We both wanted to share the act, and we convinced one another it would be fine. So many of her bones were broken that had the village's priestess of the Hist not been able to heal her she would have died. This one went away as soon as he knew that she would recover.”

  
  


“I'm sorry,” Bente said. “I have never loved someone and lost them.”

  
  


“This one hopes that you never do,” he said. His tone shifted as he spoke again, lighter. “We ought to have a wash before we go back up. We may not smell to a Nord's weak nose, but this one assures you -”

  
  


“Then you'll have to carry me to the ocean. Be quick about it,” she said.

  
  


“They make the beast with two backs one time and she gets all bossy,” Alusei said. He sat up, shifting his grip so that he could lift her away from his cock and hold her up in both arms. She relinquished it reluctantly. It had gone soft, but it still hung out of him. It retracted gradually over the next few minutes.

  
  


They washed in the salt sea as best they could, got together such clothing as they could muster, and staggered back uphill, leaning on one another in the loose clumsiness of the afterglow. Alusei's tail slapped the backs of Bente's legs every so often. She felt pleasantly sore inside, a natural feeling that healing did not dispel.

  
  


“You could come to my room,” she said. “You do sleep?”

  
  


“He has a room in the Hall of Countenance, but he does not rest there,” Alusei said. “Most nights he stays down by the beach. Some nights in the Midden.”

  
  


“There are rats down there. Come have a real bath with me and lie up until tomorrow. Do you have class?” Bente asked.

  
  


“One has a tutorial in the afternoon.”

  
  


“If you stay until ten nobody will be in the Hall,” Bente said coaxingly.

  
  


“One's armor makes him a poor bedfellow,” said Alusei.

  
  


“I like your body as it is,” Bente said. “If I did not, I would not invite you to my bed.”

  
  


“I cannot, Bente,” Alusei said quietly. It was rare that she heard him actually use the Cyrodilic pronoun, and it was the first time that she had heard him use only her first name.

  
  


“All right,” she said, squeezing him around the waist. He was slightly more yielding than a wood post, and warmer. “Where would you have me come?”

  
  


“From on top,” he said firmly. She broke down laughing, face pressed into his muscular arm.

  
  


“No, my black dragon, when shall we meet again?”

  
  


“One does not know yet,” he said. “But one intends it. Sundas, perhaps.”

  
  


“I'll hope to see you. And now you are permitted to kiss me.” It was greatly daring to say the words, and she quaked inside to do it, but she heard the rattling purr of his laugh in turn. He bent to press the end of his muzzle to her lips, and the end of his agile tongue flicked against hers as she moved her lips against the scales. Then he was gone, leaving her leaning in the gateway as she watched him blend with the darkness and vanish.

  
  


Bente was nearly asleep on her feet as she crossed the courtyard back toward the Hall of Attainment. It was a clear, moonlit night, Masser and Secundus huge in the sky overhead. The greater moon was a sliver, the lesser waxing gibbous. Stars spangled the sky around them. The student robes were darkish, gray and green and dull blue, and she was hardly paying attention; she nearly walked into Xerius on the paving.

  
  


“Hold there,” he said, and held out a hand to stop her. She stiffened automatically, then forced herself to try and relax as she stepped to the side. She heard him cough.

  
  


“Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.” Her voice was a little slurred, and she was aware that she was flushed and heavy-eyed, her hair damp and still clinging in fat strings.

  
  


“It's all right. I understand you're a Journeyman now,” he said. She could not see his expression in the darkness, but his voice was all courtesy. Soft. Smooth. Like his skin. Once again she thought that she ought to be moved to feel something for that, but she could not.

  
  


“Yes, I tested yesterday,” she said.

  
  


“Congratulations. You'll be moving to Countenance in no time,” Xerius said. She winced inwardly at the genuine warmth in his voice, but her answer was composed.

  
  


“Thank you. Good night, Xerius.”

  
  


“Good night, Bente.” He coughed again as he walked away.

  
  


She barely made it in before Lockout at 10. The Keybearer came just behind her to lock the Hall of Attainment, a stolid old Imperial in layers of wool and fur. She fell asleep twice combing out her hair, and the final braid was loose and messy, but at last she was under the covers with her head on a real pillow.

  
  


Bente slept so heavily that she missed her first class entirely, Beginning Enchanting. It was not an area of particular interest to her, but it was best to show willing where she could. By the time she was dressed, Advanced Alteration was nearly over. She still felt relaxed and lazy. She gave up and went to the dining hall to gather enough scraps of bread and cold eggs to satisfy her ravenous appetite, apologizing to the kitchen staff as they cleaned up. Luncheon would be cold and left out until it was time to lay out the dinner line. She returned _Breathing Water_ to the library and tucked up in a chair there in a corner with _Those Who Walk On The Sea._ Urag did not ask why she wasn't in class. The old Orc's interests were narrow and largely related to his books. She thought it was one of his better qualities.

  
  


That night she hoped to sneak in and get dinner without anyone noticing, waiting to even get into the line until it stretched halfway across the courtyard. She nearly made it to the end with her burden of slaughterfish – she wondered if Alusei had caught it – and winter cabbage and toast with cheese. Then she heard a familiar voice.

  
  


“Bente, Bente! Where have you been all day? You won't believe what happened in Advanced Destruction. Everybody's talking about it.” Saelar was waiting at the end of the line with her own wooden tray, practically quivering with the need to impart news. Today the little Bosmer wore her hair in many small braids twined into one larger one, draped artfully over one shoulder.

  
  


“I wouldn't want you to feel unladylike,” Bente said, smiling slightly as she followed Saelar back toward a table where several others were already sitting. Some she did not know. She recognized Ilnung and Ahdossi. The hall was busy, humming with chitchat and the clink of dishware as students crowded the tables.

  
  


“Oh, very funny, you. Be nice or I won't tell you.” She pouted at Bente exaggeratedly.

  
  


“I am very nice. What happened?”

  
  


“Xerius nearly killed one of the new novices!” She spoke in an exaggerated whisper, the sort that is easily heard from some ways away while still suggesting a token desire to keep quiet. “An accident, apparently. He's an Atronach-sign, you know. Nearly bottomless magicka and it refills when anyone hits him with any.”

  
  


“I blame the Redguard, what's her name, Falta?” said Ilnung. “Hello, Bente, missed you in Basic Restoration. If she'd been more careful or been paying the slightest bit of attention it wouldn't have happened.”

  
  


“Xerius is a junior aide. It is his job to see that this sort of thing does not occur,” Ahdossi said from further down the table. “One does not reach the rank of Wizard if one explodes with ice shards in class without warning.”

  
  


“There was warning, from what I hear,” Saelar said, sitting down beside Bente. “He told her to stop throwing lightning and she said 'no, really, I can keep going' even though he was starting to glow. Two other students were injured, but not nearly as bad as Falta was. If that Argonian Ilnung doesn't like hadn't been there -”

  
  


“It's NOT because he's an Argonian,” Ilnung protested. “It's because he's creepy, all hunched up and glaring at me all the time. He sticks his head out like a vulture.”

  
  


“ _Anyway,”_ Saelar said, trying to poke Ilnung with her fork. He leaned away, laughing. “J'zon left Xerius in charge while he went to get some prop or other. Probably one of the target dummies. If the Restorationist – Swims-In-The-Dark, that's it, I remember now - hadn't been in the Hall on his way to the Arcanaeum, she probably would've died on the spot. She was so full of icicles she looked like a pincushion.”

  
  


“I'm surprised to hear this,” Bente said. “I've always heard Xerius was very controlled.”

  
  


“He _was._ Nobody knows what's wrong with him and now he's locked in his room,” Saelar said. Bente's face did not change as her stomach sank.

  
  


“Poor man,” she said. “And poor Falta! Why did it happen? Was he sick?”

  
  


“Nobody knows,” Ilnung said. “He hasn't said, but I guess Tolfdir's been up to see him, and he's the senior Wizard. He's not saying anything, of course. I mean I wouldn't want him to either if it was me, I suppose.”

  
  


“Maybe it is because Bente broke his heart,” said another Khajiit, a young man whom Bente did not know. He had the lynxish look of a Skyrim native, his ears tufted and his brown fur thick and spotted with black. His tone was flippant.

  
  


“I don't think he was that far gone,” Bente said, equally lightly. Saying it aloud made her feel slightly better. “Probably there is some problem with his family back home or something.”

  
  


“No doubt he has not slept in days because he was pining for Adhossi,” said Ahdossi, grandly waving a gray-and-white speckled hand. “It is tragic, but she cannot help that she is irresistible to the sex she cannot love.”

  
  


There was general laughter, and the topic passed on. Bente went home with a calm countenance and a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She did not wish Xerius harm, and certainly did not wish him the humiliation he was now facing. Humiliation and worse: for if he could not control whether or not he was casting at any given moment, a strange and aberrant thing, he could never be let into the sight of people again. He could never be allowed to absorb magicka again. To a mage of what she knew to be considerable power, that was a living death.

  
  


But she watched for Xerius the next two days and did not see him, neither did she see Alusei. On Loredas she went to Tolfdir after Beginning Enchanting.

  
  


“Sir, please, is Xerius all right?” she asked. The old Nord stood with his hands folded behind him, his white beard combed carefully, staring into the well of power in the center of the Hall of the Elements. The pillars loomed tall around the edges of the circular space, delineating the main floor from the shadowed walkway.

  
  


“I trust that he will be,” Tolfdir said.

  
  


“What happened to him?” Bente asked.

  
  


“He was taken ill,” Tolfdir said. “We have cured him, but he is unable to rest enough to regain control of his magicka as of yet. He will need a little time before he is able to resume his studies, I think.”

  
  


“But where is he?” Bente asked.

  
  


“The Tower goes up much higher than the Archmage's quarters,” Tolfdir said. “You may have noted how high it is from the outside. He is in an upper room.”

  
  


She nodded. “This did not happen because he was – because his heart was broken, or anything like that?”

  
  


“Oh, no, certainly not,” Tolfdir said. “He had pneumonia. Has for a couple of weeks, I suspect, and just tried to ignore it. He's a contained young fellow.”

  
  


“Yes. Thank you, Wizard,” Bente said, and went on about her day with a lighter heart.

  
  


On the morning of Sundas she went down to the beach with her rags and her old robe and her bag. She had not seen Alusei in two days, and after what had happened with Xerius she was not sure he would be there. She walked along the beach toward her little cave. Rain pattered down around her. The weather was cold, and no one else had come down, so it was quiet enough.

  
  


Alusei rose from the water on her right, naked except for his loincloth, black and dripping. He navigated the transition from sea to shore with complete ease. She envied it.

  
  


“There you are,” she said, and smiled at him. He smiled back, showing all his sharp teeth.

  
  


They spent a lot of that day in the wet sand, recasting to stay warm, until neither of them could physically continue. The first time that she saw him start to heave and writhe she stopped grinding against him and told him,

  
  


“Not yet. You do not have permission.”

  
  


She did not continue until his breathing calmed and his claws released their hold on her hips. When she did finally feel the first building contraction herself she gasped,

  
  


“I permit you to come.”

  
  


He came so hard that he nearly lifted both of them off the ground. She felt his legs shaking, and her own climax went on even longer, knowing that she now had that power. From then on he was trained. By the fourth time she could make him come with very little stimulation, riding his thigh (carefully – she was very sensitive by that time, and his scales were very hard) and stroking his cock with her hand. When she told him to come, he came.

  
  


Afterward, when he had healed her scratches and they had staggered out to wash and back in to poke up the fire in the cave, they lay together on an old blanket she had brought. Alusei lay on his side, and Bente sat crosslegged, resting her elbows on his ribs as if he were a chair. She stroked the smaller scales of his throat with one thumb, and he cupped one arm around her waist. The fire crackled gently, and the rain could be heard pattering down outside.

  
  


“I'm glad you were able to save Falta,” Bente said. “You probably saved Xerius as well by so doing. Though I think they have not yet let him out of the tower.”

  
  


“He is not entirely well,” Alusei said. “One does not like to be looked at by so many people, but fortunately it was not for long.”

  
  


“I am very proud of you,” she said. “If you will accept that from a lesser mage.”

  
  


“One will accept it from the little Nord who gives him orders.” He inhaled, turning his muzzle to press it into her wrist. “One never gets tired of the scent of you.”

  
  


She leaned down and kissed him.

  
  


After a while he said,

  
  


“Below the Middens there is an old Dwemer ruin, Namchthuz. Galvyn Indoril and Menali found it. One knows where to find brass chains down there.”

  
  


“Hm.” Bente frowned. The thought of Alusei with his arms chained behind him was a titillating one, but... “Is that right, with – with history being what it is?”

  
  


“This one has never been a slave,” Alusei said. “You have never owned a slave. What is wrong for you to do to me, if both wish it?”

  
  


“And you do wish it,” she said.

  
  


“She holds him with her words. It would please him to be bound by her hands as well. He is hers.”

  
  


Bente could not entirely describe the swelling feeling of warmth blossoming through her chest.

  
  


“You are mine,” she said. “Very well. Bring me chains.”

  
  


After that he came and found her on Morndas and Tirdas as well. They didn't always have sex. Sometimes they swam together as she practiced her water breathing. But he would always work it around to some sort of exchange wherein he asked her permission for something. She was always ready to give it, or to withold it if she thought it right; and in those moments she looked into those thin-pupiled green eyes and saw the pupils bloom broad and round, and she felt a jolt as if she had been struck by lightning. There had never been anything like it. On the evening of Tirdas they practiced with the chains, to make sure that she could get the ancient lock open with the corroded key he had found. She half-suspected he could just break them. The brass was old and tarnished and the links were thin. But they held his arms back very satisfactorily, and she could beat him for some minutes with another length of the stuff, until he was so hard he twitched and hissed and begged.

  
  


“I will not be able to come down on Middas,” she said. “I have to go to Winterhold to get new underthings. My old ones are nearly destroyed now, and the rags I used to swim in are – well, you saw the state they're in.”

  
  


“Does she need money?” Alusei asked.

  
  


“No, I have saved a little,” Bente said.

  
  


“Hm. Well, one must go there for a soul gem to bring to J'zon, but it is likely our paths will not cross. One is not sure of the time.”

  
  


“At the very latest, Sundas,” she said. “Probably it would be better for us to rest a day or so anyway. I don't want either of us to become a bad student.”

  
  


“No, no, of course not.”

  
  


On Middas she had only the one morning class. She spent some time studying in her room, to reassure herself that she could, and then took her flaccid little purse and went across the narrow bridge and down to Winterhold in her student robe. The Altmer called Faralda still stood at the great seal, always watchful of the only path into the University. She greeted Bente absently, but by name. She never seemed to forget anyone.

  
  


Much of Winterhold had been destroyed in the Great Collapse, vanished into the Sea. What remained was a single street lined with stone buildings with thatched roofs, each with a wooden peak to help shed the snow. Summer was very short here, and winter was long. The building that held Birna's Oddments had a wooden second story built on over the wooden first one, pillars holding up a walkway around the upper half. Bente had never had trouble finding it even before she could read. The sign was a picture of a scale, not a written name. She brought her measurements and collected one of the larger off-the-shelf sizes that was for sale and went out with it tied into a paper parcel.

  
  


The Frozen Hearth across the way was still quiet at this time of day, not yet full of the cheerful student crowd. Bente avoided this particular opportunity to socialize. She had no one to send her money for drinking, and anyway terrible things could happen if you got drunk in the wrong company. Behind it lay the ruins of houses that had fallen in during the Great Collapse, and to either side of it there were people's houses, looking much like one another. She paused on her way up the walk when she heard a familiar hiss.

  
  


The pathway between the inn and the house was covered in moss, damp but not snowy in this cold spring. There a couple of Nords stood over someone tightly curled up on the ground. One of them wore the mail and the nasaled helm of a city guard. As she watched he kicked at what was in front of him with an armored boot.

  
  


“You stupid lizard. You ought to go back to grubbing in the sewer in Riften, not hang around here pretending you're people,” he said. The man next to him, who was sloppily dressed in leathers and stank of too few baths, guffawed and kicked at the target in turn. Bente set her package on top of a barrel as she turned down the alley, stomach churning. She knew what she was about to see. Alusei was wearing his gray-and-blue student robes, and he lay curled on his side with one arm over his head, rumbling deep in his chest.

  
  


“Stop it at once,” she said. They both turned to look at her, and the guard pointed a rusty mace toward her, a smooth-headed thing with a wooden grip.

  
  


“You move along, girl, this is no concern of yours.”

  
  


“I will not ask you again,” Bente said. “Alusei is a student of the College of Winterhold.” Every instinct screamed _run,_ every particle of her knew what happened when you tangled with city guards – but it was Alusei. Alusei, lying there without defending himself. And she knew exactly why. _He's afraid he would kill them both, and no one would believe him that he defended himself. Not an Argonian in a Nord city, not when one of them was a guard._

  
  


_Well, fuck them. They can't have him._

  
  


“He's a filthy lizard, is what he is,” said the second man. His blond beard was tied in a rough knot on his chest, and it looked stringy and full of straw and dirt. There was just enough of a resemblance between his craggy face and the guard's that they might be related. “And you're a stupid cunt.” He made a grab at her arm. Bente let him have hold of it and fastened her other hand to his throat. She had seldom needed to use that health drain spell, and only on slaughterfish, never on a man; but now she wound up the power and let it go without the slightest hesitation. The hand he had been about to hit her with fell to his side as he screamed, eyes bulging from his head. The veins stood out blue-black and ugly on his face. Bente held on, and then something hit her hard in the back of the head and the world shut off for a second.

  
  


When she knew what was happening she was lying on her side, and the blond Nord stood over her, hunched over and bleeding from his nose and ears. The guard stood there with his mace, glaring down at her from behind the nasal of his helm.

  
  


“You'll stay down if you know what's good for you,” he said. Bente reached for his ankle. He kicked her in the ribs. Something went _click._ She curled up, gasping, as agony bloomed across her chest. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. And behind the guard Alusei rose to his feet, tail lashing. He seemed to grow even larger as his scales stood away from his body, spines pressed forward to their greatest height. He had never stopped hissing – but it was not the guard he looked at now. It was Bente. She looked up into his eyes, so very green, and between them stretched the chain.

  
  


“I give you permission,” she said.

  
  


“Oh, you do, do you? Well that's right royal of you, miss - ” The guard's speech was cut off in a scream as Alusei seized his tunic in one hand and his greaves in the other and pulled and twisted. Bente was splattered with hot blood as the guard was torn in two. Alusei let him drop, a mess of pink intestine flopping between the two halves of him. His gurgling scream was cut off by the stamp of a clawed foot.

  
  


“Good gods, you've killed Morni. You filthy stinking lizard, you killed him!” The other Nord staggered forward, grabbing up the dead man's dropped mace. Alusei picked him up by his throat and flung him into the wall. The mace thudded into his armored shoulder without making the slightest impression. Bente heard the _crunch_ as the Nord's head hit the stone, but she had begun to feel dizzy. She rested her head on her arm, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

  
  


Someone had hold of her. She stiffened, but the arms that held her were hard, rough, warm. Power bloomed through her, pure and bright, and her head cleared as the pain in her chest faded. She sat up and turned to hold him tightly, stroking the back of his head. She felt the scales gradually lie flat again.

  
  


“One must go,” he said. His voice was harsh, deeper than she had heard it.

  
  


“No. You come with me,” she said. “Back to the College. We will deal with this from there. You will not be taken by the Jarl's men, to whatever fate they think best. Hurry, before someone comes.” She let Alusei lift her onto her feet, his hands patting her under each breast to check that her ribs were intact, and then they turned to walk quickly back to the bridge. She barely remembered to grab up her paper packet on the way. Faralda stared at their blood-splattered clothes.

  
  


“There's going to be trouble,” Bente told her quite calmly. “We were attacked, and we defended ourselves. We're going to talk to the Wizards.”

  
  


“Go quickly, then,” said the Altmer. She turned back toward the bridge with narrowed eyes.

  
  


They waited just inside the door to the Hall of Elements until Tolfdir was finished talking about shields to this year's newest novices. Those who were of species with stronger noses looked back at them periodically, but at last they scattered to their next destinations and Bente could shepherd Alusei up to the Wizard, her hand on his back.

  
  


“Oh, good afternoon – good Gods, what's happened?” he asked, turning to look at them. Bente's right side was wet and smeared with mud on top of the blood stains.

  
  


“I went to town to buy clothes,” she said. She still had the packet under one arm. “When I came out I heard a noise between the Frozen Hearth and the house next to it, and I saw a city guard and another man beating Alusei. The guard had a mace, and the other man was kicking him. He said the guard's name was Morni, I think.”

  
  


“Yes, go on,” Tolfdir said, frowning slightly.

  
  


“I told them to stop, and they did not stop. I laid hands on the second man, but the guard hit me in the head. Alusei would not defend himself alone, but I asked him to help me. He tore the guard in half. The other man took up the mace to attack him, and he threw him into a wall. Both are dead.”

  
  


“Swims-In-The-Dark, is this true?” Tolfdir asked, turning to the Argonian. His scales were smooth again now, and he held his spines nearly flat.

  
  


“It is true,” he said. “Morni and his brother Korvin have bothered this one before, but he has always waited until they were done and healed himself. It was not worth the trouble that would result until they attacked Bente Valdirsdottir.”

  
  


“You should have come to me with this sooner,” Tolfdir said, still frowning. “Our relations with the town have been fragile for some time, but the Jarl's men have never openly attacked students of the College. You will need to tell your story to the Arch-Mage-In-Residence.”

  
  


“Of course,” Bente said. She winced inwardly, but she was accustomed to appear calm in most circumstances, and that practice did not fail her now. She patted Alusei and released him. “We have nothing to conceal.”

  
  


“For something this urgent, I think we may reasonably interrupt her. Follow me.”

  
  


He turned toward the vestibule and the stairs. Bente and Alusei followed him up the winding staircase, past the doors to the Arcanaeum and up to another set of tall wooden doors. Tolfdir knocked twice, then pushed one open and stepped inside.

  
  


The Arch-Mage's quarters were two stories high, about a third of it containing the stone framework of a second level. The lower room was paved with the same sort of tan and black stone paving as the rest of the College, but an alchemy garden occupied the center of the room. A pair of wisps circled above the riot of flowers and mushrooms, gliding about the trunk of a tree that looked quite healthy despite the lack of natural daylight. There were tables and desks and bookshelves around the walls of the lower level, ordinary things, but the air crackled with so much magicka that it raised the hairs on Bente's neck.

  
  


Beside the tree there was a rock with a sizable growth of red lichen on it. On the rock sat a Dunmer. She looked to be below the middle age for that species, her gray skin still smooth beneath the line of dotted scars that decorated her brows and cheeks. Bente did not know what tribe they signified, or what they meant, only that the manifold aura that exuded from the little mer was terrifying. Her hair was red, little wisps of it escaping under the hide hood of her mantle. She wore the Arch-Mage's traditional garb, the dark navy trousers and robe with the blue-gray pointed tabard over it, the edges fringed with fur and the hood atop all of it. Someone who did not know what the awkward-looking raiment signified might find it a bit silly, especially on a hatchet-faced little Dunmer.

  
  


The Arch-Mage looked up as they entered, shears in one hand and a small length of lichen in the other. Her voice was a rough, determined alto.

  
  


“Yes, Tolfdir, what is it? Some change in young Darian's condition?”

  
  


“No, I'm afraid it's something else, Arch-Mage,” Tolfdir said. She set aside shears and lichen and dusted off her hands as she rose to come toward them.

  
  


“Well, what's happened? Ah, Journeyman Valdisdottir, Evoker Alusei. I see you've been having some trouble.”

  
  


“Go ahead,” Tolfdir said. Bente repeated what she had told Tolfdir. Alusei added confirmation quietly where it was relevant. The small red-on-red eyes of the Arch-Mage looked from one to the other without visible expression.

  
  


“You tore a man in half with your bare hands,” she said.

  
  


“Yes, Arch-Mage.”

  
  


“Without the use of magicka.”

  
  


“Yes, Arch-Mage. This one is unable to fortify his strength. That spell is not taught here at the College.”

  
  


“Generally not, no.” The Dunmer pinched the bridge of her nose. “All right. Tolfdir, go to Faralda and see that every student is recalled from the town. We can't afford the possibility of hostages.”

  
  


“I think you'll find that Faralda is already doing so, Arch-Mage,” Tolfdir said. “Assuming that she saw these two return in their present condition.” He glanced at the two of them, eyebrow raised.

  
  


“She did,” Alusei said.

  
  


“Just so. But of course I will go, Ma'am.” He bowed deeply and turned to head rapidly out.

  
  


The Dunmer watched him go without comment, her face weary. It occurred to Bente that she had only been here at the college for a couple of short years, when Faralda and Tolfdir had known one another for decades. She must sometimes feel a bit left out. Well, at least the other two Wizards were new.

  
  


When the door had shut behind Tolfdir the Arch-Mage said,

  
  


“You're An-Xileel, aren't you? The scales are different.”

  
  


“My father was,” Alusei said. There was a moment's silence as they looked at one another. Bente was aware of the weight of a history in which she had not taken part hanging between them. Where _had_ this mer come from? Had she been in Morrowind during the Invasion and survived? Had she lost family to the An-Xileel invasion, or been forced to flee herself?

  
  


“The past is dead,” the Arch-Mage said eventually. “Let us leave it in its grave. If there is anything else the two of you would like to tell me, now is the time.”

  
  


“I will take Alusei with me and swim away down the Coast if we must,” Bente said. “I do not wish harm to the college, but I will not surrender him to any Jarl's men.”

  
  


Both of them looked at her.

  
  


“Where did you come to us from, Journeyman?” The Arch-Mage asked.

  
  


“Markarth,” Bente said. “I was born in the Warrens and taken into the Mine when my mother died. I escaped from there during the Forsworn attack.”

  
  


“You can read and write,” The Arch-Mage said. It was not a question. There was no way to rise to the rank of Journeyman without betraying complete illiteracy. But her tone betrayed surprise; everyone who had been to Markarth even once knew of its Warrens, where the poor and sick went to die. It was not a place full of ways for a child to be educated.

  
  


“Yes. I taught myself when I was new here,” Bente said steadily. “I knew one spell that my mother taught me. I think she was some sort of mage once, but she never told me how or where.” She was aware of Alusei staring down at her, spines lifted in surprise. They rattled softly, and she knew that he was thinking of all of the little things that this explained, filling in some of the unpleasant gaps. “My Cyrodilic may sound to you like any other Nord's, but in our tongue it is very obvious where I came from.”

  
  


“I see why you do not trust a Jarl's authority,” the Arch-Mage said, hands folded behind her. “But I think this also will not endear us further to the Winterholders.”

  
  


“No, it will not,” Bente said. “Do you wish that we go?” Beside her, she heard Alusei rattle deep in his throat, but he did not speak.

  
  


“No. We do not throw away our own so readily,” said the Arch-Mage. “Come. The Jarl knows we can defend the bridge against an army, and he does not have one. He will have to send someone to talk.”

  
  


Bente thought privately that they would not be thrilled to be speaking with a Dunmer, either. She had heard other students say that the townsfolk had hoped that Savos Aren's successor would be a Nord of Skyrim, and the decision of Ivir Salvorsson to pursue his destiny elsewhere and leave an Arch-Mage-In-Residence had not sat well. For now, she followed the Arch-Mage with Alusei beside her, her arm in his arm, her fingers intertwined with his. Students were already loitering in the Hall for the next class, and they turned to stare as the figure in the familiar hood passed through the vestibule.

  
  


Conversations died down in an expanding wave of silence as the Arch-Mage walked up the courtyard past the statue of Shalidor with its outstretched arms. J'zon and Pendre stood to either side of the statue, waiting in grim silence. The sight of Bente and Alusei walking arm-in-arm behind the Arch-Mage in their dirty and bloodied robes occasioned little comment by comparison, although from the corner of her eye she saw Ilnung staring, his mouth a round O.

  
  


Tolfdir and Faralda stood on the seal beyond the narrow bridge. Bente had to release Alusei to cross between the Arch-Mage and the Argonian; there was not room to walk two abreast. As she drew nearer she could see over the shorter Dunmer's shoulder.

  
  


A row of mailed and helmed guards stood tightly grouped at the bottom of the slope that led to the seal with its overhanging stone roof. Just behind them stood a tall woman with long, pale hair. The cold wind blew it to one side, forcing her to impatiently push it behind her. She wore a tight laced tunic and paudrons of stiff leather with flaps that hung to her ankles in front and at each side. Beneath it hung a worn dress of yellow-green cloth whose rich dye and elaborate embroidery looked as though it had once been fine. There was a steel sword on her left hip, and she stood resting her left hand on its pommel as she looked grimly up at the approaching Dunmer.

  
  


“Housecarl Thaena,” said the Arch-Mage.

  
  


“Merani Dres,” said the Nord stiffly. Her omission of the title did not feel accidental. “It is my understanding that your students have murdered two of my citizens, one of them a member of the guard of Winterhold.”

  
  


“That's them behind her,” said one of the guards, a man standing down at the end of the line. “That's the lizard Morni used to talk about.”

  
  


“Their account of these events is that your guard has regularly been beating Evoker Swims-In-The-Dark,” said Arch-Mage Dres. Bente had never heard her actual name spoken before. “That Journeyman Valdirsdottir stepped forward in his defense, and that they defended themselves successfully against an unwarranted and unprovoked attack.”

  
  


“Very successfully,” said the housecarl acidly. “Morni was torn in two pieces and his brother's neck and skull were smashed. I don't see any marks on your students.”

  
  


“Alusei healed us,” Bente said. “They nearly killed me.” She still had clotted blood in her hair that the healing spell had not got rid of.

  
  


“The Evoker is a Restorationist,” said Arch-Mage Dres.

  
  


“The penalty for slaying a guard of the City of Winterhold is death by beheading,” said the housecarl.

  
  


“So I have heard. Would you like to know the College's penalty for attempted murder of a student?” asked the Arch-Mage. “It is somewhat less merciful than beheading.”

  
  


“You know that I cannot take them by force,” said Thaena. “Not yet. But if they ever step foot off your bridge again, they will pay the full penalty for their crimes. The College of Winterhold has flouted our laws with impunity for two long. You are a blight on this town and on this coast.”

  
  


“And the other students?” asked Arch-Mage Dres.

  
  


Thaena and the Dunmer looked at one another steadily for a long moment, neither blinking.

  
  


“They can still come to the inn,” Thaena said finally. “But if there is any further trouble we will not show mercy. You have been warned.”

  
  


“Understood,” said the Arch-Mage. The look held for long seconds more, until at last the housecarl turned on her heel and started back for the distant Longhouse where the Jarl held court. The guards backed up after her. Tolfdir and Faralda closed ranks in front of the Arch-Mage, against the possibility of any parting arrows, and she turned to gesture Bente and Alusei ahead of her.

  
  


“What is the College's penalty for attempted murder?” Alusei asked as they walked.

  
  


“The records indicate that it is death by the draining of the murderer's life by two people over the course of four hours,” said Arch-Mage Dres. “It has not actually been invoked in over a hundred years, mind you. But the Housecarl probably does not know that. What she does know is that without our business the town would wither and die. There must and will be tension, but she will not needlessly harass the other students. I'm afraid your own case is more serious.”

  
  


“We cannot leave the College,” Bente said quietly.

  
  


“No. If you cross the bridge, we cannot protect you,” said the Arch-Mage. “We likewise cannot survive without Winterhold.”

  
  


“One understands,” said Alusei.

  
  


“It's not forever,” Bente told him quietly. “It's only until I have advanced far enough to be able to levitate down to the sea.”

  
  


“Levitation is not taught in Skyrim, is it?” asked Alusei.

  
  


“Oh, perhaps occasionally,” said the Arch-Mage. Both of them looked back at her. “But you've a long way to go before you're ready to contemplate that, Journeyman.”

  
  


Bente tried to imagine being trapped away from the sea for the years it would take to advance far enough to learn one of the most difficult spells in the school of Alteration, and for the first time all day she began to feel frantic, color rising to her face. And what a misery for Alusei, who spent so much time in the water!

  
  


“I never meant to do this to you,” she said to him quietly, and for the first time since she had come to the College her voice nearly cracked.

  
  


They were off the bridge now, passing under the arch back into the courtyard. Alusei stood by the doorway to wait.

  
  


“Is one permitted to hold you?” he asked.

  
  


“It is permitted.”

  
  


He put his arm around her, pressing the end of his muzzle into her hair. She felt the nostrils dilate and contract against her scalp as he took in her scent. She buried her face in the front of his robe, shuddering.

  
  


“You have done only what was right,” he said. “We live. The rest will come.”

  
  


“I love you,” she said, without looking up. He put both arms around her very carefully. She could feel the crushing strength of the muscles as the gently enfolded her.

  
  


“And I love you, my Nord who gives the orders.”

  
  


“I've spent too much time locked away of late,” said the Arch-Mage. Bente colored up, realizing they'd been saying all of it in front of her as she quietly stood there watching. She straightened hastily.

  
  


“I'm sorry, Arch-Mage. I never meant to bring all of this on the College, either. I only meant to help Alusei.”

  
  


Arch-Mage Dres nodded.

  
  


“I believe you,” she said. “But difficult times may now be ahead. We will have to stand together to weather the changing tide, all of us. It is just as well you cannot spend all of your time hiding in a cave, Evoker. You are one of us.”

  
  


Bente stared, mouth half-open, but the Dunmer had already turned away, crossing the courtyard. She paid no attention at all to the stares of students who were in many cases seeing her for the first time.

  
  


“How do you think she knew one has been hiding?” Alusei asked.

  
  


“Perhaps I don't want to know,” Bente said. “Because then she might also know about the... chains and things.”

  
  


“It's a pity we cannot get them,” Alusei said. Bente grinned up at him.

  
  


“Don't think a lack of weapons will save you from me.”

  
  


“Oh no,” he said, and a gentle ripple ran up and down the rows of spines as he smiled.

 


End file.
